My neighbours think I'm weird

I can't imagine why.



Hebridean dries on the line. Machine washed! Who knew?

As promised, the Artemis handspun:



It is IMPOSSIBLE to photograph properly.

The Texel singles:



and the batts and resulting yarn (a blend of Texel and Balwen):





Again, very hard to photograph.

Use your imagination.

Right, remember I was waiting on some Viking combs?
Well I'm not any more. Bit of an epic breakdown in communications, I cancelled the order and got in touch with Wingham Wool Work, purveyors of the Peter Teal-style English wool combs. There's a month wait, the website says. So I dropped them a wee email, and got back the fateful reply "Oh, we've one set in stock!"

My credit card nearly got singed, I got it out of my purse so damn fast.

MINE MINE MINE GIMME WANT NOW!!!1!1!!!1!

So they're on their way. I think it is fate. These are what I wanted originally, but the price defeated me somewhat. However, when I bought Genevieve the Ashford Joy, I had originally budgeted for a SpinOlution Mach II. Buying Genevieve instead meant I had enough for the proper combs. happydance

I learned Andean plying! Sandy showed us how to do it at the last Spin Saturday at Gourock - thanks Sandy! I even bodged myself a tool, as Kevin Rhodes is out of stock and Michael Williams doesn't seem to read his emails very often (and I HATE using the phone) the tool is better than your hand for a lot of singles, especially if you prefer having circulation in your fingers.

Here is my version:



Elegant, huh? Polystyrene and a knitting needle. Works a treat. I like Andean plying. Originally it was only used for the leftover singles, but I've been using it on the whole lot. It means the whole skein is plied the same in one go, rather than having a mini-leftover-lonely-skein at the end, and I can control the singles better it seems. Of course it means you don't have to carry a kate around with you too. It also means I'm not forever taking the flyer off Genevieve, which I prefer. All but one skein I've managed to fit on the standard Joy bobbin.

In other news I have been cooking:



sadly not home-grown, but Sainsbury's special offer :-)

and I am dreading next week. Monday there are "major" roadworks on the M8, and then on Thursday the Pope is coming for a visit. As I'm not a Catholic (though I can play one on TV, seven years of Catholic school you know) I won't be attending the Mass in the park (I hope it doesn't rain), but I would like to be able to get to work...Maybe the boss will let me work from home that day. They're going as far as closing a lane of the M77 to use as a bus park. Wow. It's going to be bedlam.

♥

Random on a Thursday

As it's now Friday and I forgot to post this last night, it's even more random ☺ especially as it's now all temporally confused as I've added things this morning. Heh.

I had (yet another) epiphany this week. I’m good at these. This one struck me whilst driving to work. Okay, not quite the road to Damascus, but near enough *grin* I was miserable about going to work. I didn’t want to get up and go out and be bored for 10 hours then come home and have dinner and go to bed. So I smacked myself firmly round the back of the head, and informed myself that a) I have no choice if I want to eat; b) being miserable about it MAKES IT WORSE and it feels like the days last an eternity; and c) I simply CANNOT do All The Things I want to, but if I go about with a more positive attitude I tend to get a lot more done.

Well duh. So now I’m trying to be more positive and what have you and trying not to worry myself about my little anxiety issues(ironic, huh) and allergy weirdness (my sinuses SERIOUSLY dislike air conditioning but they’re just going to have to deal with it) and that insect bite on my hip? That I’ve had for like, two months? That is still going ITCHITCHITCH? It really isn’t Lyme disease. Seriously, brain, it isn’t. It’s an itchy insect bite that you’ve been going SCRATCHSCRATCH at for weeks so it’s no wonder it’s not better yet.

Moar Randomz:

Facebook. Why? I mean, really? It’s awful. I could go on forever. I do not want to see your stupid “omg poor kiddy needz an operation WONT U THINK OF THE CHILDRENNZZZZ give us all your fucking money NAOW” all over my wall. Bleh.

Hyperbole and a Half is quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen for a very long time. This post about horror movies is so me it’s unreal. Nice to know I’m not alone ☺

It was so foggy this morning it looked like November. Hmmm. Winter is coming. Need to knit faster.

You know, first thing this morning I had so many things to write down. Now I can’t remember half of them. Typical.

Bruce Dickinson rocks HARD.

Dating. I’m starting to think that I’m really not that bothered you know. After all, as things are at the moment, if I want to spend all weekend spinning, eat fishfinger and cheese butties, walk round the house half-naked or in sweatpants with a rag round my head to keep my hair up, listen to very odd music or sit half the night playing Solitaire on the PC…NO ONE CARES.

I found that if you mix Texel and Balwen fleece on the drumcarder you get a surprisingly awesome batt. By varying the percentages, you can grade the colours. That was an exciting evening at my house.

Formula 1 – I miss it. Hurry up with the holidays already.

I want to KNIT ALL THE THINGS. So I’m not casting on ANYTHING new until I’ve either finished something, or know exactly what ONE thing I need to knit straight away or I will OMG DIE. So far, nothing’s winning that contest.

Music – Following a thread on LSG, I’m delving into some new-to-me music at the moment. So far, Fever Ray, Lykke Li, Neutral Milk Hotel and Seasick Steve are going on the playlist. Also it reminded me of the deep love I have for Tom Waits, Tindersticks, Smashing Pumpkins and Björk. Also, we7.com. Full of win ☺ Lots of free music to stream, very reasonable downloads and it’s part-owned by Peter Gabriel. The radio feature is pretty neat too. Okay, there are ads, but you just ignore those.

We’re starting up a Guild! The Clyde Coast Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. I am very excited. The plan is to have meetings split between Gourock, Dunoon and West Kilbride, which means everyone should have chance to attend and we all get to see a bit of the area. The idea got mooted at the last spin Saturday and it seems to have legs. We’re all very keen anyway!

My Viking wool combs STILL haven’t arrived. I wish P&M Woolcraft would extract digit.

One of my colleagues finished today – he brought pies and bridies in for us, but I’m resisting after having looked at the innards of a bridie last time we had them. Bluuuuurgh. It’s a miracle I’m not dead. Really. So he gave me his chocolate biscuits instead ☺ Yum.

I loves my new wheel. We’re still getting used to each other but we’re making good progress. I struggled somewhat with fancy coiled-yarn plying as the flywheel wants to go the opposite way when I stop treadling. However by the end of the yarn I was starting to get in the way of it. The resulting yarn I fear will suck badly, but that's not the wheel's fault ☺

I really want to knit a Season 12 Doctor Who scarf.
All 14 feet of it.
Shoot me now. Maybe I could weave it...

~*~

We Have Achieved Fleece (oh and Woolfest too!)

First off, an apology, my camera is still in Ange's car so I have no pictures for you. I took it all the way to Woolfest, left it in the car because a) I couldn't be bothered to carry it; and b) Ange has a fancy-pants new smartphone with more megapixels than my camera (jealous? Moi?) Of course, we were so addled with wool fumes that we barely took any pictures anyway :-)

I'll come back to Woolfest in a minute, first a picture-free catch-up. Use your imagination.

KAL
The Jane Thornley KAL project is nearly completed (yay!) I have just cast off the second sleeve, so all it needs now is bands and edging. I'm toying with a crochet shell edging, but I still need to ponder on it a bit more. Very pleased with it though, it is light and summery, but has a good drape. I did a bit of fancy stitchwork at the bottom of the body and it's really worked well. Pleased, I haz one.

Fleece!
I have achieved fleece! Can't remember if I mentioned it, but my lovely neighbours have gifted me a Blue-faced Leicester fleece. It was as mucky as all hell, and quite disordered, but I gave it a good skirting and pick-over, and have washed up all the good stuff. I have a large storage box FULL of lovely clean fleece now. I've carded a bit of it, both on the hand cards and the drum carder, and hopefully this week I'll get chance to start spinning it. I have a feeling the hand-carded rolags are going to spin better than the batt, but we'll see. I want to keep some of it as-is, as there are some nice locks which will make a super-fab tailspun yarn, if I can get my head around it.

Visitations and Reorganising
I had a semi-unexpected visitor last week (Hi Izzy!) so much tidying and cleaning was undertaken :-) She made her way over to Gigha, and has been having an awesome time and I think wants to move there immediately :-) I now have my lounge floor back again, and reorganised some of the yarn storage. I had a flash of genius (happens occasionally) and dug out two bread trays I recovered off the beach. They make great yarn containment devices and fit perfectly under my sideboard. I must go back down to the beach and see if I can score any more :-)

WIPs
I'm working on the last panel of the SAORI blanket - it's been going a bit slowly as I've been doing other stuff too, but I'm roughly at the half-way mark now.
Shetland Hap Shawl - I picked this up again as a potential "take to Woolfest" project, then realised there was little point as I wasn't likely to sit down long enough (a totally accurate assumption as it turned out!) However it was ideal TV knitting, watching the Grand Prix (OMG talk about Red Bull Gives You Wings) and I could put it over my head whilst watching England get knocked out of the World Cup (man, we sucked.) I'm about three quarters of the way through the diamond centre, so not long before I can start picking up eleventy million stitches for the borders and edging.

Okay, WOOLFEST!!!
Ange kindly offered to drive me and Lilith down there, as she has the biggest car :-) So a 7.15am start and a three-hour drive later (Lilith came prepared with a Thermos of coffee, clever girl) we arrived in sunny Cumbria. And it really was sunny. In fact, it was baking. The poor Teeswater sheep in the hall looked rather warm, as they'd not been sheared yet! On the other hand the alpacas looked pitiful, as only a freshly-sheared alpaca can. We spotted the cutest lamb in history - a Ouessant. You could have fitted it in a handbag - it was smaller than the average cat. In fact, we considered sheep-napping it, but decided the owner might notice. Hopefully I have a fleece coming my way shortly.

Woolfest is much more "woolly" than Wonderwool - probably because Wonderwool is too early in the year for shearing, whereas Woolfest is bang-on in the middle of shearing season. There was fresh fleece everywhere, and somehow I managed to not snag a single one, apart from the potential Ouessant. Fail. Ange scored two lovely Shetland fleeces though, cowbag that she is :-) I think I was suffering fleece overload to be honest. I did spy a Lincoln / Merino cross that appealed, but it was HUGE and really needed combing to make the most of it. I wanted to get some English wool combs, but as the only proper ones available (it seems) are £210 from Wingham, I gave them a miss.

So what did I buy? Well, lots of fibre :-) Some beautiful tops and batts from Daniela at FeltStudioUK (again - I can't say no to her batts); some more blended tops from Wingham, along with some goodies for carding; some fibres from Freyalyn; back issues of Spin-Off from P&M; silk brick from Oliver Twist in a gorgeous green; some Udderly Smooth handcream (if it's good enough for dairy cows, it's good enough for me); a lovely shawl pin from Michael Williams; (and I'd like to apologise now for drooling all over his fabulous new skein winder - I'm saving up already); a kit from the House of Hemp for the Metamorphosis Coat though mine won't be so long; a bag and badge from the Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers; some fancy yarns for Jane Thornley-type projects; and finally a BEAUTIFUL Forrester drop spindle from Spindlers2 and some fibre from them as well. Phew.

In other news, I'm shattered, I need a holiday, my ironing basket has gone critical and I joined an online dating website. Yeah. Y'all can start laughing now. Let's just say I smacked myself upside the head a few times and I think I've got my shit together relationship-wise now, i.e. yes I'd like one please. Knights in shining armour or sheep farmers are particularly welcome to apply for the role...

:-D

My! What IS that perfume you're wearing?

Eau de Sheep.

Eau de Grease et le Poo de Sheep, to be exact.



Yes folks, I've spent the day washing some raw fleece. My kitchen now has an odd if not unpleasant aroma combination of Fairy Liquid and lanolin. For those sheep geeks, it is an Oxford Down - a rare breed at the RBST. Oddly enough with a name like that, it is one of the down breeds :-) and therefore best carded.

Here's the washing process:







Basically, I sorted the fleece roughly, picking out any really yukky bits and lumps of VM. Then I scoured it in hot water and Fairy Liquid (only the best you know, my hands are as soft as my face now...) several times to release the grease and dirt. I also carefully simmered it for 20 minutes or so over a low heat. Some people would have a fit at that, but as long as you don't boil it it works fine and helps get more of the ooginess out.

Next step was a couple of washes with my standard wool wash - which is actually some left-over "Tramp" shower gel from Lush, heavily diluted with water. Finally, when the water is running fairly clean, a final soak in a vinegar rinse fetches out any leftover suds and softens the wool.

As I went through each stage I picked out any more unwanted yuk that had come loose, then whizzed the final clean fleece in my new salad spinner and spread it out to dry on a towel. If it had been a dry day I would have hung it out to dry in a mesh laundry bag.

If you've the patience, and access to a carder and / or combs and a decent fleece supply, this is an excellent way of obtaining lots of raw materials at a good price. This partial fleece came from eBay, which isn't ideal. It was very damp and quite mucky - if I'd seen it in person I probably would have thought twice about it. Ideally I need to either find a rare breed sheep farmer or start going to wool fairs. Yes, I live on a sheep farm, but the sheepies here, amusing as they are, are mainly some kind of cross and the fleeces are pretty poor. I have seen what looks like a Texel ram though. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on his winter coat.

Also! I carded some batts. Here's the first - brown and black merino, a touch of natural beigey Corriedale and a dash of white Jacob:





Yummy. Looks like Fry's Chocolate Cream. I corespun this (first ever corespinning! Can I get a round of applause?) into:



which is only about 26yds, but lovely nonetheless.

I also carded this one, which I've christened "Bruise"





which is all merino, in several shades of bluey-purple and some black. I'm spinning this now as finely as I can:



just to prove you can spin carded fibres finely. You just have to be cautious with it!

and finally, the Hap is progressing slowly:



see?

~*~