Black and Red Shetland Shawl - Design S207

I've chosen a skein of my own handspun for my next shawl.  I made this yarn about 3 years ago, you can read about it here.

I decided to make a simple scarf type shawl with a lace border in sport weight of 87% Shetland Wool, 13% Cotton.

I started on March 22nd and was done by March 25th 2016 and used all but about 20m of the yarn.  This design has you knit the border first and then knit to the middle and work short rows back and forth, knitting across extra stitches every time until you have knit across them all.  A simple row of eyelet lace for the top and and cast off.

As you can see in the photos below, blocking really made the lace border and the shaped edging stand out.

I always struggle to take good, clear, details pictures of the darker items, especially black or nearly black.  Its lovely, soft and warm.

Passionate Beaded Lace - Design L323

I have been wanting to use this yarn for a long time but was in two minds about using it to make something for my shop following the very big public outcry about how some producers in China keep their Angora rabbits in tiny wire cages, stacked on top of each other so that the rabbit cannot run around, the wire cuts into their feet and food and excrement drop onto them from cages above them.  When they harvest the fleece they literally rip the hair from the rabbit, causing severe pain and making it bleed.

Whilst this may be true of some producers, lets face it there are immoral rogue traders in every industry that only focus on profit and don't give a damn about welfare of people, animals or the environment, this is not true of all producers.

Being a Pagan, a lover of animals and the environment I am mindful of where I source all of my materials.  I want the best quality that I can get but I also want materials that are produced in a way that does not harm animals or the environment.

I bought this yarn, and a couple of other colours in the same yarn, from a lady in the UK that looked after her Angora bunnies like they were her children.  They had huge pens in which they could run around, inside pens for bad weather and night time and outside pens for daytime and good weather and they got to feel the grass under their feet and get some sunshine.  Unfortunately, since I bought my yarn her health took a bad turn and she has a debilitating painful chronic illness that is not curable but is manageable but she no longer produces yarn.  I know that her family were helping with the bunnies, making sure that their numbers did not increase but making sure that they were happy and well cared for.

Angora bunnies coats are constantly growing and moulting, like a cat or a dog's coat does and it requires regular brushing to prevent matting.  They were handled daily and their coats get brushed carefully whilst they sat on her lap nibbling at carrots.  She then removed what had been collected in the brush and this is what she spun and dyed once she had  collected enough of it.

The yarn is 100% Angora rabbit in laceweight, each skein being 50g/400m and the colours is "Passionate" which is a blue-purple with pink streaks.  I decided to have another go at making the shawl that took me two years to make and challenged myself not to take that long this time!  I picked beads to represent the colours in the yarn as best as I could, blue with a touch of pink, and so they are Size 8 Toho round seed beads in shade 168: Trans-Rainbow Light Sapphire.

Starting on 16th November 2015 I used the same bead placement as last time, adding one to each of the diamond centres of the border and between the two rose leaves in the centre panel

I finished on 21st March 2016, used 248 beads and all but 5g of the yarn.  The photos really do not do the shawl justice as it is beautiful blue-purple, which is difficult to capture the exact colour.  It is so lightweight but warm too and floats like a dream.

Lincoln Longwool Lamb Part III - Purple

Following on from my last post about this fleece, this is the third and final part of the same lamb's fleece that I purchased back in July 2014.

I dyed this part of the fleece a really rich purple, very similar to Cadbury's purple, using Colour Craft All in One Easyfix dye in Purple.  I started out with 208g of dyed locks and after combing in was left with 129g of hand-combed nests ready to be spun, a yield of around 62%.

The camera flash has not helped with colour reproduction in the first photo, which shows the locks of dyed fleece drying after being dyed.  The middle photo shows some of the hand-combed nests and the final photo shows one of the "singles" on a bobbin after being spun containing approximately half of the spun nests.

This produced a Light Fingering weight yarn, 125g/432m that has strong rich colour and a fantastic lustre.

So that is all 3 different colours lots of the fleece, dyed and spun.  I was inspired to dye them these particular colours by something that I have had for many years and that is a tea-light lantern that I believe I purchased from Boots the Chemist more than 15 years ago, that has 3 different colours of glass panels, the colours are repeated around the back too.

Lincoln Longwool Lamb Part II - Deep Violet

This is the second lot of dyed fleece from the same Lincoln Longwool Lamb's fleece.  This was the fleece that arrived in "unusual" packaging and was really damp and smelly.

This second lot, I dyed using Colour Craft All In One Easyfix dye in Deep Violet.  I started out with 207g of fleece and after I had combed this I was left with about 127g of nests to be spun, a yield of around 61%, less than the maroon but I did manage to felt a bit of the fleece so that had to be binned.

I took the photo of the dyed locks using the flash but this has severely distorted the colour.  The bottom photo is more true to colour.  I completely forgot to take photos of the fleece being combed or of the nests ready for spinning.

This made a Light Fingering yarn, 127g/396m that has wonderful lustre and depth of colour.

There is just one more lot of this fleece in another colour.  I can't wait!

Hillcrescent Farm Jacob Fleece No.2, Part II

I am nearly there, only one more fleece to work through from Hillcrescent Farm after this one.

This is the black part of Fleece No.2, starting out with 800g of black fleece and being left with 366g after combing.  A yield of approximately 46%.

I didn't take photos of the preparation of this.  Its black and fluffy, you know what it looks like, you don't need photos of this, again and again.

I made 3 Sport weight skeins of yarn.

This one is 99g/376m

This one is 101g/351m

and lastly, this one is 149g/542m

In waves of green - Design A193

After a very beautiful but intense knit of the beaded lilac shawl I wanted to make something a bit simpler and a bit thicker as we are heading into Winter and its getting cold outside.  I have some really nice Rowan Summer Tweed in various shades of green..  The yarn is aran weight and 70% Silk, 30% Cotton and is no longer manufactured so I have to be very careful and precise with my maths to ensure that I don't run out of yarn.  Maybe a motif design or something in stripes, or at least something that could be worked in stripes to produce an interesting effect.

I got out the skeins that I have of this yarn in five various shades of green and sorted them from dark to light.  There is obviously a cuckoo in the nest that was a completely different tone and just didn't fit in with the others and this was put back into my yarn stash and I proceeded with the four remaining shades.

Using a 6.5mm crochet hook I started this on 9th November with a row of foundation single crochet.  This is much easier than working a long chain of stitches first and then crocheting into them as you make the foundation chain and the stitch at the same time.  Here is a very good YouTube video on how to work a foundation single crochet.

The photos below show it laid out on my blocking boards before a soak and after a soak and pinned out.  I knew that the wrap would not grow width ways but I did expect it to grow length ways as the lace pattern was opened up.

Its a lovely soft shawl that is versatile and can be used as a wedding shawl or equally would look good casual with shirt and jeans or a summer dress.

Lilac Beaded Lace Shawl - Design L7

I wanted to make another spectacular shawl as I've not done any fine lace knitting for a while.  I chose a lovely lilac lace weight yarn that I got from Solstice Yarns, which is 50% Baby Suri Alpaca, 30% Merino and 20% Silk.  Suri alpaca is the rarer breed of alpacas, the one with the incredibly long hair, as opposed to the normal, fluffy, Huacaya alpaca that you are probably more familiar with.

I loved making the heavily beaded scalloped shawl that I made with my own hand-spun Shetland wool so much that I am going to make it again using this yarn and Size 8 Toho round seed beads in shade 928 Rainbow Rosaline Opaque.  I started knitting on 7th September.

I took lots of work-in-progress photos so you can see the shawl growing.

I finished this on 4th November 2015.  The pictured below show before soaking and blocking and during the blocking process.  Blocking really makes a difference to the finished item, especially so with lace shawls.

The alpaca/wool/silk blend is so lightweight and drapes beautifully.  There are 5,083 beads on this shawl and the beads weigh more than the yarn does.  I used 68g of yarn and the shawl weighed 185g, meaning that the beads weighed 117g.