Friday 10 September 2010

Friday 10th September

Hello I hope everyone has had a good week.  Its been a hectic one here as it was the first full week back at school, its been hard work getting used to the new routine but now we are settled and looking forward to the weekend.

Its been a busy week on the fibre front as well.  I have started to organise the winter weaving and knitting for the online shop and had a dye run in the week as well.  Aside from dyeing up samples for a customer in the US of silk roving there are new hand dyed wool rovings for sale in the Etsy shop, do have a look, I am going to have a hard time letting these go!

On the loom this week is the lambswool and silk scarf I mentioned in last week's posting, pictures below,




This shows the work in progress, the ten outer threads on each side are just lambswool and the rest of the dents are threaded with one lambswool and one gold silk thread.



Here is a closeup of the pattern showing the "ridges" running the length of the scarf, these are made by threading 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4,4, so a double half twill.



This shows a closeup of the warp threads so you can see the gold silk thread alongside the lambswool.


Also I am spinning up some Shetland Rovings that were purchased from Jamieson and Smith on the Shetland Isles.  I bought 500g of Black (which is actually dark brown), 500g of fawn and 500g of white.  Once these are spun up I am hoping to make a double weave shetland throw in a tartan style pattern and also knit some fairisle cushion covers.   Hopefully these will go into the online shop.  Unless they are snaffled by older daughters for their homes!!



Here is the first of the white being spun up and below



is the second hank of black before it was washed to set the twist.

So a busy week allround and I am looking forward to a little R and R this weekend.  Eldest daughter has come to stay so lots of fibery chat.

Have fun with your fibre, whatever you are doing and it would be lovely to hear from anyone with pictures of their projects and favourite looms/wheels.


Friday 3 September 2010

Friday 3rd September 2010

Well, the summer holidays are over and the children are settled back into school.  Apologies for not having posted anything since the beginning of July but it has been an incredibly busy time.

During the break I have been busy sorting out my yarn stash, I am sure it keeps growing behind my back, I really dont remember buying some of it!!  Anyone else have that problem?

I shall be having a carpet fitted in my workroom soon so have got to get down to a major clearout of fibres and yarns, I may just have a sale on my etsy shop and clear some of it out the way for good. 

I shall be dyeing up lots more fibre and roving soon and putting that up for sale in my online shop so keep checking back for progress. 

Spinning up at the moment is 500g of brown wensleydale roving and hand dyed silk roving which together look very nice.  This is being spun very fine using the higher ratio smaller whorl on the Minstrel wheel.

I have a warp of lambswool and gold thread waiting to be put on the Glimakra julia loom and shall be threading up a four shaft pattern from the latest edition of Handwoven magazine.

My older daughter is now eight months pregnant and we are excitedly waiting for the arrival of baby and lots of knitting is still being done plus a floor quilt that I am making.  Hoping desperately to get it all finished in time.

I would always be interested to hear from anyone who has any questions about spinning or weaving or just wants to chat fibre in general.

Signing off for now fibre fans, more soon.