Advent Calendar 2024 Day 22 - Mrs Claus

I have seen a few variations of a "Mrs Claus" character over the years and she is usually portrayed as being dressed very similar to her husband "Santa Claus".  My favourite one is from Santa Claus The Movie and she is played by Judy Cornwell and John Huddleston played Santa and Dudley Moore played Patch, the elf.  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 guess this pattern could feature on her costume if she is wearing something knitted or maybe an apron with stitching on.

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.  This one is really soft and smooth and is so lovely.  I definitely want some more of this one.

Spinning up an old 12 Days of Advent set from 2018

Yesterday I finished spinning a set of 11 silks and a main braid that I started spinning on 16th July for the TDF2024 challenge of spinning something that you find tricky, your arch-nemesis.  This set was from way back to Christmas 2018 and was a set put together to celebrate the 12 Days of Advent (or 12 Days of Christmas if your prefer) by a supplier that I no longer use.  This is not an Advent Calendar, which run 1st to 24th December, this is to celebrate the 12 days after Christmas to 12th Night. There were a few different options available at the time, which I wrote about here, and I chose one called Pine Forest, as those colours appealed to me more than some of the brighter, bolder, or gaudy colour options.

The main braid is really soft and an interesting medium grey colour with splodges of dye along it which match some, but not all, of the colours of the Tussah Silks.  The set is designed to be used together in one project, or at least most of it together in one project, and there are plenty of patterns available that use a main yarn together with smaller amounts of other colours.

So although I spun the first two skeins of silk on 16th and 17th July I didn't spin anything else until 7th August as I was away or busy doing other things.  The Tussah Silk was all spun first, over-the-fold and plied as a standard 2ply yarn.  I used the same over-the-fold method for the main braid too with, again, the standard 2ply.  With hindsight I kind of wish I had spun the main braid as one big single and then chain plied it to keep the colours more together but it's done now and I like it as it is anyway.

The colours of the silks, starting with the pale blue in the 12 o'clock position and working clockwise around are: Sunrise, Fir, Milk, Storm, Twilight, Wood, Cloud, Tuareg, Fog, Thyme, Paradise.  The main braid I have called "Pine Forest", after the name of the entire pack, and the fibre content is 50% Corriedale, 25% Yak, 25% Rose Rayon.  All of the yarns have spun up at 16-18wpi, which is the range for Light Fingering weight.

I am very happy with the way the entire set turned out and I am no longer scared of spinning 100% Silk and I found spinning over-the-fold to be quite enjoyable.

12 Days of Christmas 2018 Part 2

Back in November I wrote a post about the 12 Days of Christmas "advent calendar" of fibre that I bought myself.  Well, obviously we are well into the New Year now and I have opened all of the little parcels inside.  I was a good girl and only opened one packet per day.  I didn't peep, even though it was really tempting to do that.

I have added the days and the names of the colours to the photos below but they might be quite small to read.  The Tussah Silk are in order from the top right going downwards and then turning left along the bottom, 20g each of Sunrise, Fir, Milk, Storm, Twilight, Wood, Cloud, Tuareg, Fog, Thyme, Paradise.

The spinning tips for the main braid is to spin it over the fold as the Yak fibres will be shorter than the others and that it likely to be comfortably spun somewhere between fingering and double knit weight.  Some people have blended the silk with the main braid and then spun and plied that, others have blended the silk with other fibre they have and used some or all of it to ply with the main braid, some have spun them all up separately and will use all 12 yarns in some kind of stripey or patterned item.  I like the idea of keeping them separate but I've never spun pure silk and it frightens me a bit but apparently that is also easier to spin if you spin it over the fold.  I've never spun over the fold but all that means is that instead of spinning it from the end of the braid in one continual length you pull pieces of and fold it over your finger and let the fibres go into the yarn from there.

I also took a photo of the free coaster that we got in the pack, which is really pretty.

12 Days of Christmas 2018

As soon as my regular fibre supplier announced her idea that she had for a special Christmas parcel bundle of fluff I was all ears.  Her idea was for one main braid of fibre that we all open on Christmas Day and then 11 small packets of fibre to be opened one a day for the following 11 days and all this would be parcelled up in a hand-printed fair-trade cotton bag that she designed and printed herself.

She came up with 3 options originally and every time she released a new batch they sold out in minutes so due to high demand she came up with a 4th option using fibre she had in stock to replace one of the colourways that sold out after 2 batches.

These are the inspiration photos that she released, from left to right top row: Northern Lights, Ski Lodge, Christmas Cake and the large photo is Pine Forest.  Northern Lights was put together and released for the last batch.

Some of the fibre bases changed as they sold out and was replaced with the same colour on a different base, such was their popularity.  I decided to go for Pine Forest, which I managed to get from the third batch because I either missed the release time or I just wasn't fast enough and it already sold out before I could checkout.  They literally sold out that fast.  It was crazy!

These are the descriptions that she wrote for each colourway.  The main braid is 100g of luxury hand dyed fibre and then we have eleven 20g parcels of Tussah Silk that have numbers on them so we all open them on the correct days.  A different colour main brand and different colour range of Tussah Silk for each colourway.

Christmas Cake
Warm rich tones, think Spices, Candied Peel, Dried Peel, Dried Fruit. (Spoiler: pick this one if you're not a fan of blue, this really is the contents of your spice rack, the citrus fruit bowl, raisins, sultanas, with a small amount of green.)
Batch 1: 60% 18.5 micron Merino, 20% Yak, 20% Tussah Silk
Batch 2: 60% 18.5 micron Merino, 20% Yak, 20% Tussah Silk
Batch 3: 100% BFL

Pine Forest
An early morning walk in a pine forest, snow on the ground, frost sparkling on branches, dark shadows. (Spoiler: there is green... but not in huge quantities.  It's focusing on the interesting things light does as it filters through branches.  This one is filled with cool colours and interesting neutrals).
Batch 1: 60% 18.5 micron Merino, 20% Yak, 20% Tussah Silk
Batch 2: 60% 18.5 micron Merino, 20% Yak, 20% Tussah Silk
Batch 3: 50% Corriedale, 25% Yak, 25% Rose Rayon.  This is the one I managed to get.

Ski Lodge
A mug of hot chocolate, classic skiing knitwear, a midnight view of a snowy mountain. (Spoiler: this one has a real mixture of colours.  Very few of what I describe as "warm" tones, and the ones that are included aren't bright and in your face.  They're designed to set off the other colours.) 
Batch 1: 60% 18.5 micron Merino, 20% Yak, 20% Tussah Silk
Batch 2: 50% Corriedale, 25% Yak, 25% Rose Rayon.
Batch 3: None produced - replaced with Northern Lights colourway

Northern Lights
Bright colours dancing across a dark sky
Batch 3: Superfine Shetland

So, my parcel arrived this morning and I couldn't wait to take photos and a little peep inside, knowing that they were all in little sealed paper bags so that I couldn't really peep at what was in store.  I found a little round cardboard thing inside the bag with a pretty design on it, turns out to be a coaster but I've not taken a photo of it. Really excited for Christmas now to see what I've got.