Spinning

I've decided to make a separate page to document my spinning projects as they happen, to keep it separate from the knitting stuff. My mind is terribly organised like that, just wish I was too lol.


Couldn't resist this washed, dyed and carded Shetland from www.newmoorbarn.com; there are 4 x 50g, can't wait to get it on the wheel.  In a lovely piece of synchronicity too, my friend on FB posted up a painting in very similar colours just as I was opening the package. How about that?

 

The painting is by Zinovii Sydoriv

I spent the whole of Sunday sitting spinning at a craft show,  representing the Dorset Guild WSD. I took various fleeces and bits along, but sat ad spun some Dorset Horn which was commercially prepared and I've had for a while. Very soft to spin, resulting in a lofty finished wool, very nice to handle. Not sure what I'll do with it, but this is what I got spun on the day, plus one bobbinful .

Latest arrival, just landed on the doormat today -  another Boreray fleece. Not sure I can keep away from the carders this evening! 

Update on the spinning below - my skein and yarn was commended in the recent County Show, thrilled to bit s:)


14th August - am looking forward to getting in among this one! 100g of merino, titled 'Blaze' 

 

 Afternoon update, have spun half of the batt:

 

17th August - plied and ready for skeining,  pleased with how it's turned out, the final colours are glorious:

 

 

4th July 2103 - spun this up from a gorgeous mixed fibre batt I bought at the Guild meeting last Saturday for £2.50 - couldn't resist those colours. Just had a nice two hours of therapeutic and restorative spinning

31st July - 70g of  washed North Ronaldsay spun up, turned out soft and a very good colour, pleased with it :)

12th July - Shetland/silk spun up now, although Ihave another plait up in the cabin if I want more later. Pleased with the result, it's got a lovely feel to it, will become a hat I think :)

11 th July - on the bobbins currently is a rather nice Shetland/silk blend I bought at Glastonbury wool festival last year. White silk, with natural brown Shetland, I wasn't sure how it would spin up, I'm not usually a fan of flecky yarns, but this is turning out nicely so far. I have one bobbin completed, hope to get the second one done this afternoon, then ply; nice and soft to spin, bought as a prepared roving, so it was straight on the wheel for this one :)

No definite plan for the finished yarn will see what suggests itself :)

28th June 2012 - fleece news!  I managed at last to buy a whole Oussant fleece from e-bay, the miniature French sheep, been after one for a while. A friend in Somerset then had her small flock shorn, so there are two more on the way as we speak :)  I also bought 100g of Soay from the wonderful Forestfibres (http://www.forestfibres.co.uk/) - they usually have good stock of rare breed fleece. I want to get some proper samples done and recorded into a folder for my own future info - eg raw fleece, spun, knitted sample etc of all the British rare breeds, just as a record for myself , nothing fancy. Good old e-bay came up trumps again and there is now the biggest dump bag I've ever seen in the sitting room containing 10 moorit Shetland fleeces - grand sum of £1.99. Sadly I missed out on the 10 white ones for £2.04 lol  I do have a nice white one in the cabin I bought at Glastonbury last year though,  so am not quite bereft.
Also purchased were 2 x 100f of dyed tops from World of Wool (http://www.worldofwool.co.uk/), one each of pure merino, one of a merino and silk blend.
So, there will be lots of spinning very soon. A lot of what I produce is actually sold/bartered etc,  so I don't just buy for the sake of it, there's usually something in mind! I find it inspiring too, to sort through it all and come up with new ideas for spinning and knitting. Not sure you can have too much, really!