Spinning "Sky at Night" and "Magic"

This is the last of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  For this one I spun up the last of the black Jacob and then I spun up the 63g of 100% Merino from that I overdyed in June 2023, it was previously a repulsive "Hot Pink" or "Barbie Pink" colour that was in a "mixed bag" that I bought for my "ingredients cupboard" but I was never going to use it as it was so the time had come to over-dye it in a useable colour. 

I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until one of them ran out.  As it happened, I ran out of the Jacob before I ran out of Merino so once I had finished the yarn I made a small skein of Merino by making an Andean plying bracelet of the remaining single on the bobbin and plied it back to itself.  The main skein is 52.5% Jacob, 47.5% Merino.

I love the way the colours of the Merino are constantly changing between blue/lilac/purple and plying that with the black Jacob really makes the colours pop.  It is similar but different to "Night Sky" so I have called it "Sky at Night".

This has turned out to be sport weight and there is 99g/244m

For comparison between the two...

This one is the top one of the two, the bottom one is the one I spun up on 6th December 2023, which was a little thicker too.

The remaining Merino, I spun back to itself so that this little skein is 100% Merino and is sport weight and 12g/33m and I've called it "Magic".

Spnning "Mint Chocolate"

This is the third of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  I made sure I had a full bobbin of the black Jacob and then I spun up some odds and sods of green Merino that I had in my "ingredients cupboard", which is a cupboard full of small amounts of various fibres in various colours that you can buy as "mixed bags" etc and most are generally 10-30g sample sized bumps of fibre, into a gradient.  I made the green merino gradient by just simply pulling bits off of each adjoining colour and basic hand blending it a bit to make a "go-between" colour.  I did this for all of the adjoining colours.  It's far from perfect but it's worked pretty well.

31g Conifer, 18g Forest, 18g Leaf, 14g Peppermint
89g Natural black/brown Jacob 

As you will note, there was far more of the darkest green than any of the other 3 greens and I could have decided to not use all of it but I did use it all and my thinking was that I could use this to my advantage if I make a semi-circular shawl that starts with just a few stitches and increases with each row. I would have quite a deep section of the lightest colour and then as the shawl gets bigger the next two colours would be used on a decent number of rows, but not as many as the lightest colour, and then with the length of the rows being so long by the time I start using the darkest shade I would need that extra amount to get any decent number of rows worked in it before it runs out.

I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until all of the green Merino gradient was used up.  I used 89g of black Jacob with the 81g of Merino.  The fibre content is 52.5% Jacob, 47.5% Merino.

I'm not totally in love with this one.  I had an idea and I had to try it out.  It could have gone better, I could have done it better.  I think the palest of the green looks almost white and I think that is what is throwing me off this a little bit. It is what it is.  I've called this one "Mint Chocolate".

This has turned out to be Double-Knit weight and there is 166g/396m

Spinning "Chocolate Box"

This is the second of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  For this one I topped up what was left on the bobbin of the black Jacob and then I spun up the 53g of "Selection Box" 50% Shetland, 25% Bamboo, 12.5% Flax, 12.5% Sari Silk from Day 20 of the Advent Calendar 2022.

I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until all of the Selection Box was used up.  I used 52g of black Jacob with the 53g of Selection Box.  The fibre content is 50% Jacob, 25% Shetland, 12.5% Bamboo, 6.25% Flax, 6.25% Sari Silk.

I love the way that the colours of Selection Box are constantly changing like the flickering flames of a fire and plying that with the black Jacob really shows that up.  I've played around with the original name and the fact that it is now plied with the black/brown Jacob and called it "Chocolate Box".

This has turned out to be Double-Knit weight and there is 97g/214m

Spinning "Night Sky"

This is the first of four planned yarns that I will be making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  For this one I spun up a whole bobbin of the black Jacob and then I spun up the 48g of "Baubles" 100% Merino from Day 8 of the Advent Calendar 2022 that I overdyed in June 2023.

I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until all of the Merino was used up.  By some miraculous fluke my finished yarn weighed exactly twice that of the Merino, so despite being different types/textures of wool both singles weighed the same and so this is 50% Jacob, 50% Merino.

I love the way the colours of the Merino are constantly changing between blue/lilac/purple and plying that with the black Jacob really makes the colours pop.  I've called it "Night Sky".

This has turned out to be Double-Knit weight and there is 95g/225m

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2022 Stage 6 - Binche (in Belgium) to Longwy (in France)

Stage 6 of the Tour de France and it is a 219.9km long hilly race that starts in Binche (Belgium) and ends in Longwy (France)

The Map

Sights and points of interest along the route

The town of Binche, formerly Bincium, was formed in 1120 during the reign of Yolande of Guelders, Countess of Hainaut.  The ramparts of Binche have been magnificently preserved in almost their entirety It has almost 30 towers and 6 gates.   

Binche Ramparts

There are also traces of the former shelter provided by the Abbey of Bonne Espérance, now known as Caves Bette, was acquired by Monks in 1380 who turned it into a refuge to be used at times of war and to stock provisions.  The International Carnival and Mask Museum, Belfry of Binche which is an integral part of the town hall built in the 14th century.  Le Fuseau Arts Crafts and Lace Centre, Binche lace is characterised by the extreme fineness of the thread (never cut) used by the lace makers.  The "snow background" thus gives the works a fairytale appearance.  Victor Hugo himself made a large echo of it in Les Misérables.  It is said that the "Binche point" is the most difficult in the world to knit.

The remains of the Palace of Mary of Hungary.  Erquelinnes and 14th century Castle of Solre-sur-Sambre, the town of Beaumont famous for its macaroons and 11th century Salamander Tower.  Eau d'Heure lake and the Plate Taille Dam.  The town of Chimay were the 96 year old Princess Elisabeth de Chamay resides in Chimay Castle, built in the 11th century.  Lake Virelles and Notre-Dame de Scourmont Abbey

Chimay Castle

Continuing along the route and back into France is Rocroi, Secheval, Charleville-Mezieres with an old mill built in 1626.  Donchery and Sainte-Onésime Church then onto Sedan with its 17th century Dijonval Royal Cloth Factory which is now luxury accommodation.  There is also the medieval castle of Sedan, with seven floors and walls of 25m thick in places.

Sedan Castle

Bazeilles, with Château de Lamecourt and Château de Montvillers, amongst several castles in the area.  The towns/villages of Margut and Thonelle, Basilica of Notre-Dame D'Avioth and the village of Marville with its aerodome being a former air base and Saint- Nicholas Church.  Onto Longuyon, which is close to the Belgium and Luxemborg borders with Sainte-Agathe Church, the original building dated back to before 634.  Cons-la-Grandville Castle in the town of the same name.

Cons-la-Grandville Castle

The riders then reach the town of Réhon, birthplace of cartoonist Jean-Marc Reiser (1941-1983).  The final town is Longwy with its Vauban Fortress and what is left of its old medieval castle.  Other notable places include St Dagobert Church and the Church of Mont Saint-Martin

The Fortress and castle of Longwy

Who Won the Stage and Who Won What Jersey

The Stage winner is Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates

The Yellow Jersey won by Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates.

The Green Jersey won by Wout van Aert for Jumbo-Visma.

The Polka Dot Jersey won by Magnus Cort Nielsen for EF Education-Easypost/USA.

The White Jersey won by Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates.

Combatif Award won by Wout van Aert for Jumbo-Visma.

Leading team: Ineos-Grenadiers

The Challenge: As the cyclists leave Binche in Belgium we thought we'd follow up yesterday's challenge with something more sedate.  Tomorrow is world Chocolate Day and you rarely think of Belgium without jumping to some sort of chocolate!

Take a picture of your favourite treat.  Be creative!  If you want to spin today, we'd suggest a chocolate-y fibre to dig in to.

Suggested Fibre:  Our recommendation is Alpcalypse; it reminds us of a chocolatiers selection box

What I did

I had a good look through my stash and whilst I do have a couple of brown fibres, specifically dark brown Yak and a brown Alpaca that were both in the Advent Calendar, I don't want to spin those as they are, I feel that they might need putting with other fibres.  I decided to look to chocolate packaging, no Cadbury purple in my stash so do I go red/white to represent Maltesers packet?  What colours do I have that fit this challenge?  I settled on two different lots of Botany Waste.  One was a 50g bump of blue from the Advent Calendar and the other was a combination of two different lots of white from a white Botany Waste pack that I bought last year and I drafted the two whites side by side to ensure the fibres mixed all the way along the single as it spun.  I have no idea what the actual fibre content is other than that the white is a medium wool with lots of bounce but not particularly soft and the blue has sparkles in it and is maybe various shades of merino or Corriedale.

The finished yarn is a double-knit weight and is 99g/203m which in terms of the TdF length calculations is 609m - 2 singles plus the plied length = 3 x finished yarn length.

The big experiment is finished - almost!

I have taken a deep breath and just got on and finished up something that I started months and months and months ago.  I got sick of looking at it, sat there in a bag staring at me, pulling faces at me.  That's what it felt like at times.  It was one of those projects that I wanted to do but then couldn't bring myself to finish what I started.  Lockdown hasn't helped at all.

So, I finished all six skeins as intended earlier this year.   Now that I have finished it I do actually like the way it looks as it is but I still also want to know what it will look like if I over-dye it blue so I will keep 3 skeins as it is and dye 3 skeins blue.

I had about 85g of spun single left over from the lightest grey part of this project at the end so what I decided to do was to put together some odds and ends and spin another single and ply them together and then add the finished skein to the dye pot when I dye the other 3 skeins blue.  The beige-yellow part that I used in this blend is from the same fleece as the rest of the Jacob and is what I had tried to dye using Marigolds in this post here.  The other bits and pieces were all from a lap waste bag.  It all went through my blending hackle to produce the bump of fluff in the biggest photo below.

I spun it up and plied with the left over and then there was still a small amount of leftover, which I just plied back on itself to produce a tiny little skein of pure Jacob wool.  In the photo of the two bobbins, the darker one is the new blend I just created and the light one is the last of the Jacob.

The new large skein works out at approx 64.5% Jacob wool, 15% Corriedale wool, 11% Merino wool, 7% Icelandic wool, 2.5% Mulberry Silk.  The small skein is 100% Jacob wool.

Spinning up Pink and Munstead Wood

As soon as last months club fibre landed in my porch I knew exactly what to do with it.  Spin it and combine it with Decembers Pink to tone down that bright pink.

I spun them both separately from the end, worsted style, and then plied them together to make two large skeins of barber-poled yarn and, because there was a small amount of Pink left over, I made a small skein of that plied back on itself.

Munstead Wood is 62.5% Merino, 25% Linen, 12.5% Bamboo and Pink is 75% Merino Wool, 25% Peduncle Silk.  I've worked out the final percentages of the main two skeins, which are a little less than a straight 50/50 calculation due to the amount of Pink that wasn't used in the main two skeins but its approximately 68.25% Merino, 13.5% Linen, 11.5% Peduncle Silk, 6.75% Bamboo.

All of it is spun sport weight with the two main skeins being 95g/332m and 85g/280 and then the small skein of pink is 75% Merino, 25% Peduncle Silk and weighs 15g/51m.

Spinning up Il de France, Demeter

A few months ago I bought some unwanted spinning fibre from a fellow spinner and I am now spinning up the first of these that I have chosen to spin.  Its the Il de France in shade Demeter that I'm going to start with first.  There were just under two full braids of this so I started work on the full braid first, splitting it down the middle as best as I could and pre-drafting before I spun as it was slightly compacted and wouldn't draft straight from the braid without a bit of work.

My dream would be if this spun up as a yarn with long colour changes that transitions from one colour to the next as smoothly as possible with as little mudding or barber poling as possible.

I spun from the same end on both singles and when it came to plying the singles it started off good but didn't last.  The second braid worked out much better and when I finished plying and compared the skeins in good light I could see that one was predominantly barber-poled with smallish sections of smooth colour and the other braid was the complete opposite.  The OCD in me told me to snip out the sections that didn't belong in each skein and swap them over.  It took me a while to do this, re-joining the yarn with Russian joins whilst also making sure the colours still flowed as correctly as I could get them to.  In total, this took me over a month to complete as there were two large braids and with all the Christmas preparations going on but its not a race, I prefer to take my time and get it right.

The finished skein of yarn above is the one that barber-poled whilst still transitioning from one colour to the next.  There is 91g/328m of double knit weight yarn. 

The second skein of yarn above is the one that came out as I wanted it to, the colours matching up and no barber-poling whilst still transitioning from one colour to the next.  There is 91g/318m of double knit weight yarn.

A side by side view of the two skeins to show the difference between them and the different results you can get, accidental or intentional, from spinning the same colour braids.

These two braids will be used together with some natural white wool to make a pretty shawl that I have been itching to make for a long time.