Design LF433 - Pretty in Orange and Lime

The day after I finished the last shawl, I started making this one.  Unfortunately, I didn't calculate things correctly, and I ran out of lime green before I was able to make enough flowers.  I put in a lot of effort, searching the internet and trying a couple of alternatives, but there was nothing around that was even close in colour to this particular shade of lime.  That's what happens when you create things using vintage materials.  Twilley's stopped making this thread in all but seven standard colours: white, black, silver, light gold, gold, bright red, and bright green, years ago. The company went out of business entirely in February 2020, after operating for approximately 100 years.

The upshot is that I have made one of my usual shawls, but this one is a little smaller, one entire row of motifs less than normal, and therefore at a lower price point.

Making my own matching reverse blends from some North Country Cheviot fleece

I'm carrying on with more blending today, although I might pay for this later with some serious shoulder ache.  I keep forgetting that I'm not as young as I once was and the old bones and muscles moan and creek these days.

A few days ago I dyed some North Country Cheviot fleece a gorgeous shade of green that is certainly different to anything you could possibly find in any shop.  Today I am going to blend everything together that I have picked out and I am going to do it twice, in reverse colours.  Bear with me, all will be revealed and will make sense shortly.

So, first up is the Lime coloured Cheviot with the natural or white textures. In this blend was 157g North Country Cheviot wool, 10g Tussah Silk, 6g Hemp, 5g Mulberry Silk Noil, 4g Trilobal Nylon.

Top left: Natural undyed hemp and below that is natural undyed Mulberry Silk Noil
Top right: Dyed North Country Cheviot hand combed nests
Bottom left: White Trilobal Nylon and bleached Tussah Silk

Next up is the natural coloured Cheviot with lime coloured textures.  In this blend was 137g undyed North Country Cheviot wool, 10g Tussah Silk in shade Caiprinha, 7g Hemp in shade Caiprinha, 7g Silk Noil in shade Chlorophyll and finally 2g each of the Trilobal Nylon in shade Caiprinha and Neon Green, the later I dyed myself a few days ago because I knew I hadn't got enough of the Caiprinha for this project.

Top left: Hemp in shade Caiprinha and below that is Silk Noil in shade Chlorophyll
Top right: Undyed North Country Cheviot hand combed nests
Bottom left: Trilobal Nylon in Caiprinha and Neon Green and Tussah Silk in shade Caiprinha

I did try and over-dye the Silk Noil in Chlorophyll a few days ago to make it more like the green of the Caiprinha fibres but it didn't want to take the dye, it might have done slightly, but not very much.

So the finished blended fibres are very pretty.  My favourite right now is the green with the natural coloured textures.  It's a shame that the silk noil in the other blend didn't take on the green dye as it would have made it less "yellow" but I'm happy enough with these.  The amounts are different between the colourways and so is the final fibre content because of that but once spun up I envisage that these two will be worked together in the same project in some kind of striped item.

The fibre content of the Green Cheviot with natural textures is :  86% Cheviot Wool, 6% Tussah Silk, 3% Mulberry Silk Noil, 3% Hemp, 2% Trilobal Nylon.  There is approximately 174g of this to be spun.

The fibre content of the Natural Cheviot with lime textures is : 83% Cheviot Wool, 6% Tussah Silk, 4.5% Silk Noil, 4.5% Hemp, 2% Trilobal Nylon.  There is approximately 153g of this to be spun.

Making my own yellow blend for the last day of the TDF2023

I've been playing with my blending hackle again today and making a yellow fibre blend in preparation for the upcoming Tour de Fleece 2023.  There is always a "yellow jersey day", usually on the last day of The Tour.  I'm not buying any fibre for this event this year, I will make do with what I have because I have plenty that needs to be used up.

I have already dyed some fibre for this purpose just a few days ago and I have sorted out what else will be added to it to make it more interesting.

Top row: unknown cellulose/plant fibre and Trilobal Nylon both dyed a few days ago
Middle row: Angelina, Merino/Suri Alpaca blend I dyed a few days ago, Sari Silk in shade Honeycomb
Bottom row: Bamboo in shade Clara and Mulberry Silk Noil I dyed a few days ago

So the fibres I have picked out are all yellow but in different shades and textures and some are matt and some are shiny/lustrous.  In total 140g of fibre went through my blending hackle and I got 130g back out all nice and ready to spin in four bumps of fibre, which when paired up give me two x 65g lots.

Look how soft and fluffy this is.  It's gorgeous and I can't but help think of cute little ducklings.

The final fibre content is: 50% Merino wool, 21.5% Suri Alpaca, 7% Cellulose, 7% Bamboo, 4.5% Angelina, 3.5% Mulberry Silk, 3.5% Trilobal Nylon, 3% Sari Silk

A day dyeing fibre - mostly wool

There is always a yellow fibre blend required for the TdF in commemoration of the Yellow Jersey.  I am not buying anything in especially this year but I have nothing true yellow in my vast stash either so I will need to get the dyes out and dye some fibres and then blend the results with others bits from my "ingredients cupboard".

Today is the day for doing this.  I also have a couple of other dye jobs I want to try and fit in today too.

Middle photo shows the dyed fibre drying.  Left hand side: before & after Celluose Fibre followed by the Merino/Suri Alpaca. Right hand side: before & after Mulberry Silk Noil followed by Trilobal Nylon

I weighed the fibre I intended to dye and made up a dye pot of Greener Shades Dye in Sunshine Yellow at a dye depth of 1%.  After all the fibre was soaked in warm water containing a dash of Synthropol I added the fibre to the dye pot.  There was a 100g of a white Merino/Suri Alpaca blend that I got from WoW a few years ago and that has really taken the dye well, very bright yellow.  5g of Mulberry Silk Noil that I've had a lot of years and interestingly that hasn't taken the dye as I expected but it is a pretty lemon yellow.  I also added 10g of an unknown cellulose or plant based fibre and I didn't really expect this to take much dye in, if any at all, as the dyes are specifically for wool and animal based fibres but it has taken some dye and is another one that has come out a lovely pale lemon.  The 5g of brilliant white Trilobal Nylon that I also added to the dye pot sucked in the dye really well and came out the same bright yellow as the Merino/Suri Alpaca.  I also tried throwing a small handful of hemp into the dye pot but that was totally unaffected by the dye so I haven't bothered to show that here.

My next dye job of the day is an idea that I had pop in my head whilst on holiday last summer.  I had an idea about what to do with the left over North Country Cheviot hand combed nests from the British Breeds project.  I want to split it into two and make two matching yarns in reverse colours but dye it in a very light, summery green with maybe natural whites, yellows and greens as complementary textures.

Middle photo shows the dyed fibre drying.  Left hand side: before & after Trilobal Nylon, Right hand side: before & after North Country Cheviot

After weighing and soaking the fibre I made up a dye pot of Greener Shades Dye at a dye depth of 0.2% made up of 75% Sunshine Yellow and 25% River Blue.  There was a 157g of hand combed North Country Cheviot, 6g of Trilobal Nylon and I also chucked in a couple of other fibres which were already dyed green but not quite the right shade, these were 18g of Merino in shade leaf and 7 of silk noil in shade Chorophyll but these didn't change colour, maybe a tiny bit, but not noticeably different so I haven't included the pictures here.

My final dye job of the day was to over-dye a variety of hot pink fibre that I would never use as it was and I also threw a few undyed bits of fibre into the dye pot as well just because I'm using another different colour. I made up a dye pot of Greener Shades Dye Coral Reef Aqua at a dye depth of 1% and threw all of the soaked fibres in and hoped for the best.  Some of the smaller amounts I used a large jar and scooped some of the dye water into it and stood it back in the pot just to keep the fibres from mixing with others.

In the first photo you can see a lump of pink bamboo on the right hand side, this didn't take up any dye at all so I will try dying that one again once I have the right dyes.

The colours of the fibres looked pretty good in the dye pot but when I checked the pH I discovered that I needed to make an adjustment to neutralise it but I think I might have messed it up a bit because it changed the colour of the fibre from evenly dyed to kind of a random patches of different colours.  I might not have needed to do anything and I am kind of regretting touching it.  I need to get a digital pH reader because I really struggle with those little paper things.

Top row: 59g Merino
Middle row: 10g Trilobal Nylon
Bottom row: 48g Merino - Baubles, Day 8 from Advent Calendar 2022

Top row: 25g Northern Lights Bliss (Merino)
Bottom row: 16 Tussah Silk Raspberry

The previously undyed fibre is below

4g Trilobal Nylon, 5g Tussah Silk Noil
4g Tussah Silk Noil, 5g Hemp

All I have to do now is wait for it all to dry and then make the blends I want with the yellow and the green and all of this purple and blue will go into my ingredients cupboard to use in future blends.

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.