The Yarn We Made

Shelley — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:25:03 +0100

A couple of years ago I spun up two skeins of some amazingly soft superwash Bluefaced Leichester roving into the most beautiful twine you've ever seen. It was my first foray into Navajo plying and I didn't really care for the result. My singles had looked lovely but the finished yarn was coarse and rough and completely lacking in any sort of bounce or fluffiness. It was also unbalanced...

Yarn and Some Thoughts on Spinning

Shelley — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 07:56:21 +0100

I spun some yarn the other day. It's a birthday present for my sister from three years ago. I thought maybe I should get it finished and delivered. I made up one skein for her in 2008 but that was about three days before we got Abby and spinning went on hold until we got through puppy-hood. This is fun stuff to spin. It's Blue Faced Leicester (I think) with little bits of yarn from an...

I Spun

Shelley — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:00:32 +0100

I ended up in my sewing room with the door shut on Saturday morning. I'd intended to do some sewing and the door was shut in order to give Zeke some people-time without Abby. I couldn't decide what I wanted to sew and was thinking of grabbing a book or something when I realized this was a perfect opportunity to get reacquainted with my spinning wheel.

I grabbed the roving I ...

Finishing Up and Getting Started

Shelley — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:56:39 +0100

This is left over from some yarn I spun last spring when I was borrowing Erin's Ashford Traditional. When I plied I was left with a whole bunch of singles on one bobbin that just sort of sat around until I gave her wheel back a couple of weeks ago. I figured Erin would want her bobbin so I wound the singles off into a centre-pull ball and it sat on my sewing table for a few days. Eventuall...

Sneak Peak

Shelley — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:22:46 +0100

Dinner (and what I did while it was cooking)

Shelley — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:58:50 +0100

This was dinner on Tuesday night. It was so yummy. I'd just finished shovelling all the snow off our porch (it was clear Monday night and as deep as my hand by the time we got home on Tuesday!) and I wanted something warm and filling and really, really easy.

The bread is a one-hour French bread recipe I found here. It's not quite as fluffy as a true French loaf but it&...

That was quick!

Shelley — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:23:59 +0100

I spent some time trying to make sense of the piles of things in my studio today (and hoping I'd come across the sundress pattern I know is here somewhere). I was making good progress (the books are now on a shelf) but just as I was walking out to take a short break a bag of roving caught my eye. I grabed it and my ladybug and sat in the family room to spin for a bit.

Spring Green

Shelley — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:56:50 +0100

Happy Easter and Happy Spring (only slightly belated). I hope everyone had a nice long weekend. We enjoyed having lots of free time and a couple of family dinners. I spent Sunday working on the above - pretty, springy lime green superwash wool. It will become sock yarn.(The observant among you will notice that green roving did not feature anywhere in my "in progress" to-do list - I c...

Odds and Ends

Shelley — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 02:19:36 +0100

My New Hat: Part 2

Shelley — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:26:29 +0100

Here is my finished hat yarn. I spun the second braid of wool a little more evenly but about the same overall size (so basically with fewer big slubs) than the first skein. I wanted to make sure I'd actually have enough yarn to make my hat. It measured in at forty metres.

I started knitting my hat after dinner on Friday. The biggest double pointed needless I had around were ...

Cabled Fingerless Mitts

Shelley — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:02:21 +0100

Pattern: Cabled Fingerless by Kimberly Gintar
Yarn: Socks That Rock Heavyweight in Rose Quartz
Yardage: way less than 1 skein
Needles: 3.00 mm dpn's

I'm glad I swatched for these because I ended up dropping down an entire millimetre. They fit beautifully and are just right warmth-wize. I love the little braid running up the back and t...

My New Hat: Part 1

Shelley — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 07:38:02 +0100

It's really, really cold outside.

Really, really cold.

It was -44 degrees Celsius when we walked to work this morning.

I need a warmer hat.

I bought some wool from Erin on Saturday. One hundred grams of beautiful snowy white South African wool (which falls somewhere between Merino and Blue Faced Leicester on the fine wool scale).

<...

Weekend Tidbits

Shelley — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:00:14 +0100

...or "All the things I was going to blog about but didn't get to and then the power went out."

The highlight of my weekend was certainly Erin lending me a spinning wheel. It's the Ashford Traditional and is great fun to play with. It takes a bit more co-ordination than my hand spindles but I can spin a lot more stuff. This is especially exciting since I was thinking...

Chocolate Swirl

Shelley — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:17:50 +0100

I’m halfway through spinning up my alpaca fibre. I’ve got one ounce spun and plied and set and skeined. It looks so lovely and feels even better. It seemed a bit rough when I was doing the plying; I was worried that I’d put too much twist into it and made it kind of wiry but a little bath and a bit of a stretch plumped the fibres back up again. I cou...

Chocolate?

Shelley — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:53:16 +0100

Actually, it’s alpaca fibre from Alberta. This is another bunch of birthday fibre. I started spinning it up at a spinning demonstration I attended a few weeks ago. It feels wonderful to spin. It’s so soft and the individual fibres move apart very easily. The staple is long too so I don’t find my strip of roving breaking apart very often.

I&rs...

100% Cotton

Shelley — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:38:39 +0100

There it is ... one ounce of hand-spun cotton yarn. I’m not sure how long it is - I’ll have to measure when I wind it off - but hopefully it will be long enough for this pattern from Blue Sky Alpacas. It’s a crochet pattern so I’ll be learning something new there too.

The long draw technique started to feel a bit more natural as I worked my way th...

Learning

Shelley — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:39:11 +0100

Look look! This is my very first ever cotton yarn. There is about a metre more of it on the spindle shaft behind the whorl. This fibre was a birthday present from Erin who advised reading up before trying to actually spin it. It took me while but I finally found some information on spinningcotton with a Navajo spindle and on a style of middle eastern drop spindle (thou...

Two-play Merino Lace Yarn

Shelley — Sun, 13 May 2007 03:51:57 +0100

Fibre: Merino Top, dyed by SULIFIBRES
weight: 20 grams
Length: Aprox. 127 metres
Wraps per Inch: 18

It’s finally all finished (for this stage anyway). The singles of this yarn can be seen in my lastentry - beautifully modelling how to use my new swift and ball winder. I plied it back on itself from the centre-pull ba...

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