Advent Calendar 2024 Day 13 - Lutzelfrau

I'm not German so I haven't heard of today's character but she sounds interesting. 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.

The design on this little packet is pretty, but again doesn't seem to match the character, which is absolutely fine as that is not expected but wouldn't it be nice if they all did.

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.  I love this one. It is so fine and soft and the colours are so rich but also softened by the creaminess of the both the Soy Bean and the Tussah Silk.  I would love to get some more of this.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 12 - Yulecat

This one is apparently the pet of the Yule Lads, which were mentioned in last years fibre calendar on Day 4.  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'm guessing that this is another bag design that isn't matched to the story specifically.

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.  I like the colour of this one but not the feel.  The Icelandic is pretty coarse but I do have a large chunk of what I believe is black Corriedale that was in a mixed bag of fibres and I have the two colours of bamboo that was used to make this shade of green so I might be able to re-create something similar to this and then pre-draft and spin them together.  This would up the softness of it by diluting the Icelandic content.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 11 - Melchior

Day 11 is all about one of the Three Wise Men, Melchior, with the others being Caspar and Balthazar. I was bought up as a Christian, so I do know the story, but I have never been a practising Christian and, other than as a child, attending a wedding or attending a funeral, I have never been to church. I follow a Pagan path of belief and celebrate with the decorated tree and feasting, which have their roots firmly planted in Pagan origins pre-dating the 8th century, being adopted by Christians in Germany in the 16th Century.  I don't think I need to write anything up as 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.

The design on this packet, to my recollection of the story, it just a nice winter type design with a British bird.

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.  I like this one, it has a nice amount of texture, and I'm not shy of spinning texture.  I might pair it with something white or I might see what else I have that could go with this one.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 10 - Kevin!

Todays' fibre is based on a film, or series of films, that I have never watched all the way through.  I have seen clips but it's not a film that I would sit down and watch all of the way through.  I am vaguely familiar with his jumper though, in as much as I know that it was red.  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.

The design on this packet seems to me to be just a kind of general seasonal design and nothing specifically linked to the film, unless I am wrong, as I said I haven't watched it all the way through.

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.  My first thought with this one is to pair it with one of the fibres from the 2021 Advent Calendar which is 100% Shetland and is called Cherry.  I like this one but at the same time it is my preference for it to be a lightened in colour and pairing it with the Shetland Cherry would also make that fibre more interesting too.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 9 - Knecht Ruprecht

I have never heard of this character and the spelling is a little bit confusing to me, I kept reading it as Rupert, but it isn't helped by the fact that the main heading in the booklet has a spelling mistake in the fact that there is a K before the last letter of the first word when it should be a H. All other instances of the word are spelt correctly, as far as I can tell.  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 wonder if the design on this packet is meant to represent the children in the tradition.

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.  It's nice and soft quite smooth so I have no idea what I will pair this with right now but I do notice that this is the fourth fibre on the bounce that has been quite dull and in the grey/browns kind of range.  I do hope we have a nice colourful one soon.

Spinning up May 2020's fibre from the fibre club

I am so glad to have reached the point where I have spun up the last full braid of fibre that I purchased directly from a previous supplier that I had issues with.  I wish I could say that that is it with fibres from her but I can't.  I still have one double braid lot that I bought second-hand and I still have fibres in my "ingredients cupboard" that are from her, although they are going down gradually.

This one is "Athena" and from May 2020.  I wanted to keep a lot of the colour separation to create an interesting yarn rather than one that is blended together to make a boring "beige yarn". I split it in half across the length, creating two shorter pieces, and then each half I split down into lots of long thin strips to keep as few colours as possible in each piece.  

I spun it finely and plied to produce a yarn of Light fingering weight of 103g/510m.  The fibre content is 40% 18.5 micron Merino, 20% Alpaca, 20% Baby Camel, 20% Mulberry Silk.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 8 - Nakatomi

This one isn't about a person, it's not actually a character, it's a building that got damaged a lot.  Die Hard, is it really a Christmas movie?  The events take place during Christmas so I guess it is but there are no flying reindeer, just a flying (or falling) Alan Rickman, out of a window. 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 like the designs on the little packets and this one features a Santa hat, which one of the dispatched "bad guys" (I won't use the word used in the movie here as it is bound to be picked up by word watching technologies) was wearing when the elevator doors opened, but this design is less gruesome.

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.  I do have some Gotland somewhere that I may be able to use with this but due to the fact that there are very subtle hints of other colours running through this I will most likely just order another bump of this one.