Courageous Carding

My carding has become very circumscribed by convention over the last few years. Yesterday I took a baby step towards freeing my carding. With some grey alpaca as the bread I made a sandwich with scraps of merino from previous cardings, spun it, loved it and kept making more until I'd used the whole bag of scraps.


I've still got a long way to go. My next carding challenge is make every sandwich different and see what appears on the wheel

 Here's the single - with some silk too.

I soaked the single in hot soapy water then moved a plunger up and down to begin felting the single to stabilise the twist. I lost my rhythm every time the plunger stuck to the bottom of the bucket.
Then I removed the skein, pressed out the excess water, folded it in half, gently rubbed on Sunlight soap and felted the skein in a bamboo placemat NOT very much. As soon as the skein started to stick together, I reskeined the yarn, then rinsed it in cold water. It's easiest if I wind the skein off the bobbin onto the skein winder and then I use a niddy noddy for the second skeining. I found that I could get away without any more felting and reskeining.

I took out the saturated skein snapped it twice then hung it to dry. I always get quite wet during the snapping but it straightens out the yarn so well I don't mind. I hung it out sopping wet to dry without any weight.
The finished skein is soft, light and airy.

First shawl

and first knitting using a single ply. Is it a ply if it's single?
The merino came for Tracey White at Inspire Fibres. It had a multitude of colours that I didn't want to merge together so I spun trying to keep as much of one colour together as I could.

This glorious fibre sat on its bobbin for months while I tried to decide how and what to do with it. After asking for ideas from the New Zealand Art Yarn community of Facebook I settled on a garter stitch shawl. 
The energy released as I took it off the winder.

I felted it slightly as I washed it then hung it to dry with a weight. Weight being a technical term for a plastic bottle of water. This works very well as you can adjust the amount of water in the bottle to give as much pull as you want.

Once I'd started knitting I realised I'd need more yarn so I spun some lavender merino. After soaking the shawl I pegged it to the line and gave it a few tugs downwards. I didn't have to weight it.

 I love it, so soft snuggly and versatile.

Starting them young

Last week I was in Wellington playing with yarn with my grandchildren. They like weaving so we made cardboard looms out of the tops of pizza boxes. The kids, aged 6, 4 and 2, had fun choosing from art yarns I'd taken down.

Wearable art

Creativity flying as a butterfly

Creativity blossoming

 Another day we collected sticks and magically transformed them.

Saori weaving

These are a some more shots of my saori weaving. The first thing I tried was to weave just some of the warp threads to make the "tails". I used 2 strands of 2 ply yarn that I had dyed and it produced interesting colour changes.

Fractally dyed yarn gives are lovely blend of colours.

Here you see the effect of simply inserting some fleece locks into the weft. Lower down are beehives in thick and thin yarn.

Saori workshop with Louise Cook

I was lucky enough to attend a Saori workshop at the Waikato Area Education Day. I've spent many hours looking at Saori weaving on the net and this style has influenced the scarves I wove in May and June where I used lots of different weft yarns. One of the tenets of the Saori style is to decide what to do with the weaving after it is finished - that is a very different approach to my usual one. Saori is a free style of weaving and one becomes absorbed and immersed in the process. For more see Saori philosophy  Louise is the sole accredited Saori tutor in New Zealand.

Samples of Saori weaving from the course.

And a rich brown scarf

Here the warp threads included corespun natural dark brown alpaca with red and gold silk. I dyed the mohair weft to match.

 You can see the effect of the extra twist in the corespun alpaca. It gives an interesting wiggly effect.

Blue green lacy scarf

This is my favourite. I love the colours.

Spaced warp and weft scarves

I wanted a way to highlight my handspinning and this is one solution. I spaced the handspun warp and then spaced the mohair weft. In the above image you can see the paper spacers placed across the scarf. The fibres used in the warp were merino, alpaca and silk. You can see some pink merino trapped in alpaca and also a fine pink boucle plyed around a thick white merino yarn.

 To further strengthen the interweaving of the warp and weft I gently felted the mohair with warm soapy water. the result was a lovely lacy scarf that is very light and soft to wear.

Dramatic red and black mobius scarf

A acarf to keep away the winter chills.

I'm finding that as soon as I weave one scarf I have ideas for the next  and the next with the result that my couch is covered in trays of yarns grouped by colour. I keep spinning more to add to the trays.
This one is was on the loom ready to weave when I thought of adding one strand of white boucle yarn to the mix to give the scarf an accent.


The thickest handspun warp is a pinkish red one with coils of black all spun from soft merino. Almost all the yarns are hand dyed including the finer 2 ply yarns which subtely change in colour from red to grey to black.
 

In places I have the black coils floating above the scarf. There's one at the bottom of the picture.

Autumn colours Mobius Scarf

I'm in two minds whether this is a scarf or a cowl. I've used different shades of mohair for the weft interspersed with tailspun Suri locks that I spun and dyed. It is wonderfully soft. The scarf is very versatile as it can be worn with the interwoven ends in front, on the shoulder of at the back. The cowl can also be deepened so that the fringed ends are mostly hidden.

 Here are the tailspun locks I used in the weft together with some 2 ply Suri that I used in the warp.

WOW mobius woven scarf

Having seen a mobius woven scarf  woven in Saori style by Jill Nikolene, I decided I wanted to make one. The scarf has no end as the threads from the front tie up are released to be used as weft at the other scarf end.
I put a 2.5m warp used an Ashford Knitters loom. The warp was a mix of handspun, hand dyed yarns and commercial yarns most of which I had overdyed. If you want to make one yourself follow Jill's instructions.
The length of the actual weaving was 1.9 m. Even though I thought I was following her method, when I cut the scarf from the back of the loom I found I had given it two twists. This doesn't matter as the scarf is long enough to accomodate the two.

Tailspun yarn,  fleece locks and spun beehives give a dynamic texture.

Here is the warp before weaving.

The scarf has been undone from the front beam, twisted, folded, wound back around the front beam. In the image on the right I have woven most of the front warp threads through the remaining warp attached to the back beam.


The colours are fiery like a brilliant sunset.




The result is a matrix of threads that can be worn in front, on the side or wherever.

Poppies and Anzac Celebrations

A year ago, a member of Thames Creative Fibres suggested that the group and the community make knitted, crocheted and felt poppies for display in the town on Anzac Day. One year later Maureen's determination and passion have resulted in a beautiful blanket. It was used in a ceremony on April 18 to unveil the 25lbr field gun  -a symbol of remembrance outside the Thames War Memorial Civic Centre. The gun has been completely refurbished by local Thames businesses.

Several wreaths were also made with some being displayed in local businesses. Another wreath was included in the Classic Car parade. In addition crosses covered in poppies and wreaths will be carried in the Anzac Day Parade. Poppies have also gone to Gallipoli, London and Canada, At the breakfast after the Dawn Parade, arangements of poppies will be on the tables.
After Anzac Day the blanket and crosses will have permanent home in the foyer of the Civic Centre.

Got there - 2nd woven scarf

I'm happy with this scarf. It is great to wear as it's long enough to arrange in different ways. The alpaca makes if super soft  and the edges are satisfyingly even (enough for me).

Close up of fleece locks.

The thick and thin yarn forms interesting waves in the centre of the image below.

All the yarns except one were handspun and dyed, not necessarily in that order by yours truely.

Back to weaving

J had thought my weaving days were several decades in the past but all that changed when I saw a friend weaving on an Ashford's knitters loom. Like spinning, weaving has become more creative in the last 5 years or so. I have not quite reached the no rules approach - I still like even selvedges - but my weaving has become more playful. Nearly all the yarns I used were my own handspun. Here is a wine coloured single pulled up to make little loops.

 These are some of the handspun yarns I used in the weft - merino, merino boucle, merino and alpaca thick and thin which I had lightly fulled, thick singles also fulled, grey plyed yarn and many more. The mauve mohair is a commercial yarn. I'd also dyed most of the yarns.

 This part includes spaces, inlaid art yarn, more fine singles and thick and thin.

The finished scarf. I'm not totally happy with it 'cause the mohair section is wider than the rest.

Bunny angora, silk and merino skein

This skein was a gift for the best knitter I know who had a baby some months ago. I carded the fibres together and then painted the spun yarn with dye.

Lacey felt curtain

I've made another curtain for the bathroom. It's a great way to use up of lengths of handspun. Singles are especially good for keeping the piece together. Our shower curtain is patterned with large green and turquoise leaves so I added some leaf shapes to the felt.