Cross stitching birthday cards

If you follow my Facebook page you probably already know that I like to cross stitch in my spare time, not that I get much spare time, but still.  I have an aunt and two uncles who are soon to turn 70 years old and I wanted to do something different and more meaningful than just buying a birthday card from the shop.

I designed my own cards, using information about their interests, and the Jane Greenoff Cross Stitch design software that I've had for years.  I had the idea of adding their name across the design using sparkly thread but I couldn't get the software to do this font and add it over the top so I had to print out the design I'd made and then print out the name in the font and size I wanted and do the old tracing paper trick to physically put it on the design where I wanted it.

I think they've come out great and the Twilley's Goldfingering name over the top really sets it off.
Alan has always been mad on The Beatles, Christine loves gardening and Michael loves his car and Formula 1.

Alpaca and Silk Lace Shawlette - Design A197

Straight on with the next little shawlette, this time with one of my very first handspun yarns.  This is some Alpaca/Silk that I spun up back in 2012, although I have re-plied the yarn since, and you can read about the Alpaca and the yarn here.

This is 97% Alpaca, 3% Mulberry Silk and is aran weight.

This is heavy compared to the other two mohair shawls but its really soft and silky.

Its washed up and blocked really well.

Dark Red-Black Lace Shawlette - Design A197

That was such a quick little shawlette to make that I have sorted out the yarn to make two more.  This one is some vintage mohair with sparkles running through it.

This is Paris by Wendy Yarns, long since discontinued, and its 81% Mohair, 11% Wool, 8% Nylon and the colour is called Antibes.

As I was knitting it up the colours reminded me of something and then I realised what it was.  About 15 years ago I worked at Birmingham International Airport for Alpha Retail, the company that ran the Duty Free shops, and although I worked primarily behind the scenes in the offices I knew most of the products that we sold.  It reminded me of Dior's Fahrenheit bottle, not for long though, it soon changed into a more stripey pattern.

Because of the long colour changes in the yarn it made it difficult when it came time to join in the next ball of yarn and I had to wind yarn off and cut and join in the right place to try to keep the colour sequence flowing.  I've done that before with a baby jacket!

The photos really don't do this shawl justice and its so much nicer in real life.

Salmon Mohair Lace Shawlette - Design A197

Its starting to get a little colder and so I have switched to working with some thicker yarns for a while to get some good snuggly type shawls in the shop.  This one is worked with Aran weight yarn.  I like the lace pattern but I don't like the garter stitch edging in the original pattern so I've changed that to flow better with the shawl and continued with stocking stitch.

The yarn is some good quality vintage mohair that I bought off Ebay ages ago in Salmon Pink.  You can tell if its good quality mohair by the fibre content.  A good quality mohair yarn will have somewhere around 70-85% mohair, a poorer quality/bargain basement mohair yarn will have around 35% mohair.  This one is 78% mohair, 13% wool, 9% nylon.

My phone camera is hopeless when it comes to true colours but with my main camera pretty much out of action, limping along on its last legs I am having to rely on my phone camera for work-in-progress photos.  I am trying to save up for a new camera, I know which one I want, but its difficult to get the funds together at the moment.

I'm not sure what has happened with the colours in these photos, the shawl looks almost radioactive, glowing, but in real life its not that bad.  Yes its quite bright but if you see the original photo of the yarn that is more true to colour of this shawl.

A nice quick little knit that I will be making more of I'm sure!

Black Jacob Wool Laced Edged Shawlette - Design LF195

I'm making another shawlette in the same design as the cornflower blue one I just finished.  I've chosen to use some Jacob wool that I spun in the early days of my spinning experience.  You can read about the fleece and how the yarn was prepared here.  Its a "single" yarn, as opposed to a "plied" yarn and is light fingering weight.

The problem with knitting with dark wool is that it is really hard to see exactly what you are doing and how the pattern is coming along so you need to work in good light and preferably wear light coloured clothes or have a light coloured piece of fabric that you can use as a backdrop to your knitting so you can see the pattern.

I got this one done over a few days, again the picot cast off edge took a good few hours to complete.

Cornflower Blue Lace Edged Shawlette - Design LF195

Some time ago I bought some lovely vintage wool off a lady who's father used to be a sales rep for the yarn companies way back in the 1940's and 1950's.  Lots of 'lots' in an array of colours.  Her father worked for a few different companies and most of the yarns had their original tags on.  No fancy ball bands here.  I have re-skeined all them to open them out and check for damage and weakness, washed them all and re-skeined them all up, measuring them as I go and keeping the old tags.

There is nothing wrong with this vintage wool, its beautiful and has to be the oldest yarn that I've worked with so far.  Yes, that does say 26th October 1948 and I have a shelf full of other similarly aged yarns that I bought from this lady.  This one is from Priestley & Co up in Yorkshire, the mill of course, has been closed down for many years now, as is true of many of the old northern wool mills, which is a crying shame.

It is so fine and lightweight and yet really warm.  I think its scrubbed up wonderfully for something so old and it only took me about a week to make. The picot cast off took me 2 1/2 - 3 hours to complete but look how beautiful it is.

Elford Jacob Fleece No.9

Way back in 2014 I helped a friend of a friend out by taking a number of Jacob fleece off her hands, see this post for more details on that.

I numbered all the fleece and kept fleece's 2, 5, 9 and 16 for myself, along with a rubbish one that was only good for binning or making into a rug.  This is what I did with fleece No.9, a predominantly white fleece with very little black, a large section of cotted fleece in the middle and weighing 2.1kg but the rest is very long stapled and lanolin rich, a spinners dream.

It washed up really nice and I began combing this fleece in January 2017.  Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of the weight of the fleece after washing. After combing I have 816g of lovely hand-combed white fibre waiting to be spun.  I will get to the dark fibres at a later date.

I worked on the white parts of this fleece on and off between January and August, finishing off with the dyeing in August.  Its a large amount of fleece to work on and I've had a lot going on this year with various hospital appointments and major surgery.

I spun one bobbin up in February and this got put to one side until I had time over the Easter break to get back to spinning and then I completed two skeins in less than a week.  In total, I made 4 skeins of yarn from the white part of the fleece in different yarn weights and I after I cooked some homegrown beetroot I transferred the liquid from my cooking pot to my dye pot and dyed all four skeins at the same time, the same colour.  They have all turned out a variegated yellow colour which I am reasonably pleased with.

Worsted weight, 116g/258m

Fingering weight, 120g/523m

Double knit weight, 114g/336m

Sport weight, 119g/431m