Advent Calendar 2024 Day 7 - Yet to Come

Just like that we are back to "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens but this time it is for " The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come".  All the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.

I do like the designs on the little packets and I am not entirely sure that they are themed to match the character on any given day.  I think that maybe some are as best as possible, where they can kind of match them from the designs available to them from wherever they've got them, possibly the printers.

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  I quite like this one and this may be one that I purchase more off because, due to the type of fibres in the blend and the drape that these will create, it may be difficult for me to match something out of my stash that would work with this one.

Aqua and White Lacy Crochet Scarf

I am sticking with this gorgeous scarf pattern but going back to the Vintage aqua blue Luxury Mohair by Chevy that I used to make a broomstick lace scarf and pairing it with some off white Vintage Lister Lee Tahiti.  The overall fibre content shifts slightly to be 79% Mohair, 13% Wool, 8% Nylon.

78% Mohair, 13% Wool, 9% Nylon

81% Mohair (including 9% Kid Mohair), 14% Wool, 5% Nylon

This Lister Lee Tahiti is very nice and I would say that it is the softest Mohair yarn that I have ever worked with so far.  I do have some very well world-wide known Rowan Kidsilk Haze, which is a laceweight Mohair yarn, but I cannot compare it to that as I have never gotten around to using the Rowan yet.  I do have a good amount of vintage Lister Lee Tamarisk, which is kind of a finer version of the Tahiti, so that will interesting when I get around to working that up in the future, and I had to pinch a bit of it for the off-white fringing as I ran out of the Tahiti so had to combine the two for the fringing.  I digress.

So, straight in with the finished product photos.

Summer Berries Lacy Crochet Scarf

I love this crochet scarf pattern so much that I am going to stick with it for a while and make a few of these in different colours.  So, I've picked up the left overs of the Colinette Mohair Summer Berries from the broomstick lace scarf I made and paired it with some vintage Lister Lee Tahiti in a lilac colour, which looks like it will work with the Summer Berries.

78% Mohair, 13% Wool, 9% Nylon

81% Mohair (including 9% Kid Mohair), 14% Wool, 5% Nylon

I've not used the vintage Tahiti before, I have some of this in other colours, and it is very soft, much softer than the Colinette Mohair, probably the Kid Mohair element has something to do with it.  The overall fibre content shifts slightly to be 79% Mohair, 13% Wool, 8% Nylon. With the differences in colour of the Colinette Mohair skeins, due to it being "hand-dyed", I used up some of the darker left overs for the middle section and then switched to the lightest skein for outer edge sections.  This does show up on the scarf and gives and interesting effect.

Once again, no work-in-progress photos, so straight to the finished product.

Advent Calendar 2022 Day 7

This one is sooooo soft and its white and its called Snowballs!  Made of 50% Tweed wool, 25% Kid Mohair and 25% Baby Alpaca.  I have no immediate plans for this, will have to see what else we're gonna get in the box and see what will work together.

Hillcrescent Farm Jacob Fleece No.4, Part II

Further to my post back in January about Jacob Fleece No.4 from Hillcrescent Farm, this time I have been working on making yarn from the mixed colours part of the fleece.

I decided to have a go at dying this fleece, knowing that colour would be taken up by the white or lighter parts of the fleece but not sure what would happen with the darker fleece.  I chose to combine two different dyes together to make up the amount of dye needed for the amount of fleece and see what would happen.  I chose Olive Green and Golden Yellow.

Hmmm, interesting!

I combed 212g of my dyed fleece, blending the colours together and was left with just 89g of combed top for spinning.  I had some similar coloured Kid Mohair that I bought from My Heart Exposed Yarns back in 2012.

I split the Mohair proportionately to the Jacob and drafted them side by side, and then spun from both simultaneously holding the two lengths at the same time.  I made a double knit yarn that is 160g/495m.

I didn't really like the colour of the finished yarn so I over-dyed it.  I ended up over-dyeing it twice in the same colour because the first time it was a little patchy and I had left the ties too tight and the dye didn't take in these parts, a bit like tie dying.

This time I used Greener Shades Dye at 1% made up of 75% River Blue and 25% Amazon Green and I love the colour that it has turned out.

First, it came out patchy but looks lighter than it actually was in these photos as I used the flash on my camera.

Then I done it again and took some glamour shots.

I will blog about the black from this fleece at a later date, once I have combed and spun it.

Angora Goat - Mohair

Mohair is the name of the fleece of the Angora Goat, which are thought to originate from the mountains of Tibet and Turkey, more specifically the region called Anatolia, in a city that was then called Angora but is now the Turkish capital of Ankara.  Angora Cats and Angora Rabbits also originate from here.  Mohair is often confused with Angora wool, which comes from the Angora Rabbit.

Angora goats are cute looking with fairly mellow personalties and are the only breed to goat to grow curly locks and they are also a single-coated breed and so there is no need to dehair the fleece to separate the coarse hair from the down hair.  They grow their fleece incredibly fast, with adults fleeces growing an average of 2cm every month, all year round.  They have to be sheared twice a year as they will easily produce 4-5kg of hair every year.  They are rather delicate creatures that do not fair well in cold climates and require a highly nutritional diet for them to thrive.  They are not considered to be prolific breeders either.

They are usually white in colour, but you can get black, grey, silver, red and brownish fleece too.  Mohair is composed mostly of Keratin and whilst the fibres do have scales, like wool, they are not fully developed and so Mohair does not felt.  The locks do not have crimp, although they do have waves and they do not have the elasticity that wool does and so it can stretch by around a third, which gives mohair fabrics great draping ability.  It does not pill but it will shed if not spun well and it can be spun to be sleek or fluffy.

The fleece of the youngest animals, usually sheared at around 6 months of age, is known as Kid Mohair and is the finest and softest that you can get and is usually used for clothing.  The hair of the adults is thicker so is more likely to be used in outer garments or carpets, with Bucks generally having coarser fleeces than Does.  The best hand spinning fibres come from the sides of the animals.  It has high lustre and sheen and will take dye exceptionally well, producing vibrant colours.

Shropshire Lambswool & Kid Mohair

I purchased some dyed roving from My Heart Exposed Yarns and Fibre.  I bought 100g of Shropshire Lambswool in colour-way "Mandy" and 70g of Kid Mohair in colour-way "Copper Halo".

I spun them as separate singles and I loved them both individually but decided to that I wanted to make another barber pole yarn and would ply them together.  

My barber pole yarn is 117g/164m and is a worsted weight yarn.  The left-over from the Shopshire Lambswool, I tried my hand at Navajo Plying, which is a form of 3-ply yarn made from a single ply using loops to create the 3 strands, and made a lovely bouncy yarn which is 53g/56m and also a worsted weight yarn.

I made a hat with my barber pole yarn.

Click to discover more about Shropshire Sheep