Making a blend of the blue Whiteface Dartmoor

Back in September I dyed some Whiteface Dartmoor a blue-purple colour. I have now blended it with some other bits and pieces ready for spinning. I picked out a load of fibre but three of the bumps were close to what I wanted but not quite there.  After a little test I decided that if I blend the three together then it will give me the exact shade that I was looking for, as my intention is to only put the blend through the hackle once as I don't want it too well blended but these individual bumps needs to be well blended together first.  I blended them in roughly equal amounts so used all of the Merino and about half of the Corriedale.

Top right is Merino in shade Fuchsia, top left is Corriedale in shade Tanzanite, bottom left is Merino in shade Sapphire and bottom right is the finished blend of the three

A = 57g of blended Merino/Corriedale
B = 5g of Angelina in Ultraviolet
C = 20g of Tussah Silk in Lilac
D = 25g of Merino - WoW Northern Lights in shade Typhoon
E = 7g of Merino in Lavender
F = 15 of Hemp in Lilac
G = 14g of unknown white longwool
H = 13g of Sari Silk in Moon River
I = 324g of Whiteface Dartmoor wool

I had to loosen up the dyed Whiteface Dartmoor before I put it through the hackle because it had felted slightly in places during the dyeing process.  I lost 16g in the process, which is almost nothing.

The fibre content is: 67.5% Whiteface Dartmoor wool, 13.5% Merino wool, 5% Corriedale wool, 4% Tussah Silk, 3% Hemp, 3% Longwool breed, 3% Sari Silk and 1% Angelina.

This is another blend that probably won't be spun for the the TdF but hopefully it won't be too long before I get around to it.

I've signed up for the Tour De Fleece 2023

Once again I have signed up with the same team to participate in the TdF.  Once again there wasn't the £10 voucher to use on spinning fibre that everyone got the first year the supplier got involved in the fun.  It's a shame that some people only signed up that first year to get the voucher and then "ran off with their loot".  Shame on them and they've spoiled it for the rest of us.  Why can't people just be honest.

Once again the Team organisers have produced a couple of fibre braids, Destination and Midouze, for us to use on the challenges that they are going to set and they have also given us a list of suggested fibres, like they did last year.  This year, in addition, for those who prefer to be organised and those of us who can make our own blends for the challenges, they have given us a preview list of all of the challenges on the strict proviso that we do not make the challenges public knowledge on the team chat boards as other members like to wait until the day to find out what the challenge is.

This year I can't afford to buy any fibre braids for the event and I have plenty in my stash that will suffice for most of the challenges.  Some of the suggested shopping list included Leo, Mercury/space dyed, Pina Coloda, Railway Tweed, Mont Blanc, Virgo, Worth Melting For, Rambouillet, Shetland, Wensleydale, Flax/Linen, Alpaca, Faroe Island and Angelina or Rainbow Trilobal Nylon.  

I have sorted out some alternative fibres from my stash that might fit in with the list.  I have 2 x 100g of Worth Melting For in my stash, so I know I'm good for that challenge at least.

Making a blend using the Olive Green Jacob wool

I have finally found the time to decide on and sort out all the ingredients I need to make a blend using the olive green Jacob wool that I combed back in November last year.  For this blend, I have chosen to use an amount of white wool of unknown specific breed that I got in a "waste" bag a couple of years ago.

A = 3g of unknown superfine white wool
B = 6g of Silk Noil in Ivy
C = 19g of Tussah Silk in Powder
D = 39g of unknown fine white wool
E = 11g of 23 micron Merino in Olive
F = 13 of Hemp in Cyclamen
G = 22g of unknown medium coarse white wool
H = 5g of unknown fine off-white wool
I = 60g of 23 micro Merino in Coral
J = 24g of unknown cellulose based white fibre
K = 6g of Silk Noil in Olive Green
L = 5g of Trilobal Nylon in Olive Green
M = 242g of Jacob Wool in Olive Green

There are also a couple of small samples of wool that I got when buying fibre for the British Breeds Project.  I didn't take any photos of them but they are all natural white and are; 3g of North Country Mule, 3g of Beltex and 6g of Milennium Bleu.  These samples, along with the unknown white wools in the photo above totalled 81g and I decided to blend these together first on my blending hackle to even out the fibre types and remove any really short fibres.  What I was left with weighed 62g of mixed white wool.

I split all of the fibre into 4 equal amounts of everything which totalled about 112g per lot and then each of those was split into two, one for lot for each ply of a 2ply yarn plus the blending hackle can only handle around 50g-60g of fibre at any one time.  See the photo top right of the weighing out and the photo bottom left of one bundle.  I only put everything through the hackle once as I did not want it to be too well blended together.  The photo bottom right shows one of the 50g or so of blended fibre that will make up a single ply of a 2 ply skein together with my inspiration for the colour combination, which is an amount of fabric strips and ribbon that has been tied and twisted together to make a kind of twine and was made by my youngest not too long ago.  I'm not sure what they intend to use it for but its far too stiff and over-twisted to knit with it but very pretty.

I did loose a little bit of fibre during the blending process but not a great deal.  448g went through the hackle and 421g came out in the blends, so each skein will be about 105g.  The final fibre content is: 54% Jacob Wool, 16% 23 micron Merino Wool, 14% mixed white wools, 5.5% Cellulose, 4% Tussah Silk, 3% Hemp, 2.5% Silk Noil, 1% Trilobal Nylon.

Hopefully it won't be too long before I get around to spinning this but it's doubtful that it will anytime in July as that is taken up with the TdF and I have some more preparation to do between now and then.

Design LF433 - Kingfisher Blue

For my next shawl I have picked one of the project boxes that has been in a cupboard for some time.  I have a small stack of small boxes that contains Twilley's Goldfingering that I have put together to work into shawls.  This one is pale gold, light pink and kingfisher blue.

I've not been taking work in progress photos lately but I did get a couple, one of the project box, one of the flower, one as I was sewing in the ends and some as the sun bounced on my work and I couldn't resist as its really difficult to show off how sparkly these shawls are, to capture the sparkle is almost impossible usually.

This one is similar in colour combination to another shawl that I made but it is different, that one was silver, pink mix and teal.

Spinning the Burgundy-blue-green-white braid of merino

Following straight on with the next braid of fibre from the trio pack, this is the middle braid of the three.

I done the same to this braid as I did the first, and that is to split it down the entire length, pre-draft and spin both singles starting from the same end of the fibre.

I'm trying really hard to spin this better than the first braid.  I'm sorry that these photos aren't the best, the clearest, I am a poor spinner, knitter and crocheter who is currently using an Huawei phone, need I say more?  Maybe I should keep my proper camera to hand for W.I.P photos, but then that makes it difficult/time consuming to upload them to Instagram.  Hmmmm, maybe one day I will be able to afford a decent phone, in my dreams.

This one also measures to be of Fingering weight thickness but this time I got a little more on the meterage out of it.  Its 103g/562m.  I am thinking that I might not use the braids together in the same project but to use them in separate projects.

Spinning the Blue-green-white braid of Merino

Back in November 2018 I bought myself a trio pack of 14.5 micron Merino fibre.  I have finally now started to spin this pack of fibre.

I am starting with the fibre braid on the left hand side.

I split the fibre in half down the entire length, see the middle photo, and pre-drafted it into my specially adapted basket.  I done the same thing for the second half, spinning from the same end for both singles.  Because of how it was dyed the colours didn't match up all that often, if you look closely at the fibre braid you can see that there are "splodges" of colour that don't go all the way through the thickness of the braid.

The photo above just shows the spun singles at different times during the spinning process and is not necessarily a photo of each single, I can't actually remember if the photos were taken of the same bobbin or if they are photos of each of the bobbins.

The finished yarn is really really soft and squishy.  It's not my best spinning as I've not spun anything in the last 8 months or so and therefore I am a little out of practice.  There is about 470m in this 105g skein and its measuring at about a Fingering weight yarn.

Design A447 - Pinks, Blues and Black

For my final shawl using the Aran weight cotton I have chosen to use a range of pinks, a range of blues and all tied together with black, which is why I didn't want very dark blues in this shawl, as I doubt navy blue motifs would show up very well against the black.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from top left to the bottom right: 

Light wash = 4 motifs, Candyfloss pink = 4 motifs,  Light Ice Blue = 6 motifs

Medium pink = 12 motifs, Black = main, Rose = 11 motifs 

Light Jeans = 6 motifs, Petrol = 8 motifs, Plum = 13 motifs

Where possible I tried to match a similar shade/tone of blue to that in the pink range.

Its starting to look really effective but with the additional of the central motifs it is even more striking.

It reminds me a little like stained glass windows.

So now that I have made this one, I have just very very small oddments leftover, not even enough of anything to make a flower and so my kids have had what is leftover so they can add stripes or something to whatever they knit.