Playing with the blending hackle again

Back in September I dyed some Jacob fleece using Logwood and the result was a mix of dark blue and dark grey.  I've combed that wool over the past couple of days and ended up with blue fingers and a lot of mess.  I discovered that an amount of it had felted or partially felted in the dye pot and so some of it was unusable but I still managed to get 111g of combed fibre out of the 247g.  It was a mixture of dark blue and dark grey, and me being me, I totally forgot to take photos of the combed fibre before I put it through the blending hackle today.  I did think about leaving as it was and spinning a plain-ish yarn but it really needed something, at the very least the grey and blue needed blending together again to even it out.

Using a colour grid tool that I have to help identify what colours work together I had a rummage through my "ingredients box" and picked out a number of small bumps of fibre that I felt would work with my Jacob and its mostly Corriedale and Merino fibres, I have no idea what the fibre is in the top middle.

Whilst I was loading up the blending hackle I had a couple of moments of doubt about my colour selections but once I dizzed it off the hackle and looked at it my doubts disappeared and I came up with a great name for it, Slate & Chalk, given that its a kind of slate grey, I used chalk in the dye-pot and the other colours look a like chalk on a blackboard .

Aqua and Pink Falkland

I've been playing with the blending hackle again.  This time I've been playing with 200g of aqua coloured Falkland fibre that I bought back in November 2013.  It doesn't seem that long ago but I'm glad that I chose to blend it rather than just spin it because it had started to compact slightly which would have made it a little tough to spin as it was.

Once again I have chosen a whole load of bits and pieces to put with this to give it a bit p'zazz, including Merino, Silk Noil and Angelina.

I first of all split everything equally into 4 lots and loaded the blending hackle up quite finely as I only wanted to do each quarter only once.  The wool fibres lay on top of each other really nicely but the Silk Noil had to be pulled apart into small pieces and just placed on top of the layers of fibre as putting it through the tines of the hackle would have meant that it stuck there and it would have been the same with the Angelina.  I dizzed each of the lots off the hackle and had 4 large bumps of fibre ready to spin.

I had a lot of waste stay at the back of the hackle with each lot that was blended so I removed this at the end of each lot and lay it to one side.  At the end of the blending I had 4 decent sized amounts of fibre to spin by another method if needs be.

Jacobs Gold

I am thrilled with how this has turned out and I am having trouble capturing the sparkles and shimmers that this yarn contains.  It positively glows in real life due to the Angelina and the Firestar (Trilobal Nylon) content in this yarn.

I blended it just a few days ago and now it is finished, soaked, snapped and dried.  I have 95g/246m of double knit weight yarn and its lovely and soft.  The final fibre content is: 75.5% Jacob Wool, 10.5% Trilobal Nylon, 5% Corriedale Wool, 5% Silk, 2% Merino, 2% Stellina/Angelina.

Blending some black Jacob fibres

Today I have got my blending hackle out and finally taken to task the small bag of Jacob fibre that I combed back in the first week of July last year.  It was from a fleece I got back in 2014.  This is the fleece it has come from, fleece 2 from Home Farm in Elford, Tamworth.  Its a lovely fleece but mostly white.  I am using the black fibres from this one.

I started out with 127g of black fleece last year but after it was combed this was reduced to just 77g of beautiful combed top.  I did forget to take any photos of the combed top but I have borrowed one from another Jacob fleece I prepared and spun a while ago to give an idea of what it looked like before I blended it with all the other bits and pieces, although the dark fibres from this fleece are less brown and more grey-black.

Top Row: Jacob, Yellow Silk, A sparkly white and gold blend
Bottom Row: Yellow Corriedale, Firestar (Tri-lobal Nylon), Bronze Angelina

 All the other bits and pieces have come from either one of the HilltopCloud Ingredients boxes that I've bought or from a big bag of lap waste that I got from World of Wool.

 I will be spinning this over the weekend and I can't wait to see the finished yarn as it is ever so slightly sparkly all over.

SB168 - Custom order for two capelets

Way back in October I was contacted about a custom order for two capelets in a particular colour combination.  The lady knew what colour she wanted so I took myself off to the local craft shop to have a look at what they had in stock and I picked up a couple of things but nothing like what the lady wanted.  She sent me a photo of yarn that she had seen and I tried to get it here in the UK, searching online but nothing for that yarn thickness in that particular colour.  I did find it on a US website, got excited, but then I got kicked off the website with the message that was something along the lines of "You're in an EU country, you do not have permission to view this site".  Very strange but not the first time I've had this happen.  The customer informed me that she would get the yarn, a Super Bulky weight yarn.

Soon after, the customer messaged me to say that she had got the yarn and would send it to me, so I gave her my address.  Fast forward a number of weeks and the yarn arrived with me on 23rd January, along with a few things that the customer sent to me as gifts.  It wasn't the yarn that I was expecting, so that was a shock when I opened the box and was I initially perplexed at what I was looking at, as some of the gifts were yarn.  Once I read the letter that was enclosed and figured it out I worked out that I would have to knit this yarn holding four strands together to make it the right thickness for the pattern as the yarn she had sent was only Double Knit weight.  It wasn't easy keeping it all together, smooth and the colours aligned with each other, but I did as best as I could and I did manage it, slower than usual, but hey-ho.

Spinning up the Texture Sparkle blend

Last year I bought some spinning fibre using money/vouchers that I had for my birthday.  I've just spun up one braid from that purchase.  It was a bit of a challenge for me as it is so textured, lots of bumps of sari silk, and I am a little OCD with wanting to create a nice smooth even yarn but I am trying to get out of my comfort zone from time to time and push my own boundaries of creativity a bit.

Its 28% Manx Loaghtan, 28% BFL, 28% Sari Silk, 10% Merino, 6% Stellina.  I've spun it at sport weight and I have 246m of lovely squishy to play with.  Its not super super soft but it is really nice.

I've used my Christmas vouchers

Part of my Christmas present were some vouchers for my favourite spinning fibre supplier and I wasn't going to spend them until later in the year but I saw this fibre and it just called to me and I had to have it.  There were two braids available so I had them both so I can make a larger amount of yarn and make a larger shawl.

Its 50% Romney Wool, 25% Silk, 25% Linen and just look at those colours.  The first two photos below are not of each braid but both braids lay side by side and wound to create a wonderful effect and they are each side of the coil to show the variance of colour throughout the braids.

I also got a little freebee in with the package, 4g of 70% Superfine Merino, 30% Tussah Silk in shade Soft Fruit.  It's gone into my bag of "ingredients" for making my own blends.