Kid mohair corespun

I teased out some lustrous kid mohair curls and corespun then around a commercial mohair yarn.  The skein was delightlully soft.









 The resulting yarn was unbalanced so I
spiral plyed it with a fine silk/mohair thread. It is just visible at the bottom right.

Now I'm wondering  what to make with it. It feels so good around my neck that I could just wear it as a necklace/cowl.

Majacraft Camp 2014

I recently had a great dose of fibre fun at Majacraft's camp at Rotorua. For a video of camp highlights visit http://www.majacraft.co.nz/blog/?=850/blog/?=850.

Speed Dating with Fibre Tools was my first workshop taken by Esther Rodgers aka Jazzturtle. Jazzturtle Creations I learnt from Esther Rodgers how to use a blending board and after making my first few rolags I was hooked. Luckily I had also chosen a workshop in which participants made a blending board. Even better Owen chose to demonstrate how to attach the carding cloth  using my board so I had mine made for me. On the last morning I sat in the sun happily making little rolags and more little rolags.

 Aren't they beautiful!

 Fibres on the blending board.

I spun mostly a woollen yarn using a long draw on my Majacraft Aura. I wasn't sure that this would work on the Aura because of its pigtail orifice but it did. Well I thought it had worked until I tried plying. I got myself into plying strife because I had accidently spun one bobbin on a different whorl setup to the other. The yarn broke in places because it poorly spun. All the different fibres, merino, corriedale,silk sliver, silk noil and mohair curls that looked so exciting in the rolags were beastly to spin longdraw.

 The mess on the bobbin as I searched for a broken end.

The skein of yarn  - Next time I will take the fibre off the blending board using a diz working back and forth across the board. That way more of the fibres will be in line. The difficulty with the rolags is that they had some inherent twist. Woollen spinning works best with evenly carded rolags. I had hoped I'd get away it - I didn't.

Jewel Yarn

I succumbed to this 19 micron merino yarn called Precious Jewels from Lyn Walsh of  Fibres 2 Go last July then I bought another 100g at our Thames Creative Fibres Open Day last October.

 I wanted to make a 2 ply yarn with many short colour changes with as few areas as possible where the colour of the 2 plys was the same.

The amazing colour changes after I had carefully opened out the sliver.

I made a sample and found if I spun the yarn then plyed from opposite ends (Does that make sense?) I'd get the yarn I wanted.

The two 100g wheels of fibre varied slightly in colour so I needed to put each on its own bobbin then ply the two. Starting with one wheel I gently opened out the sliver. I divided the length of sliver in half then split each half into 7 strips rolling each one into a ball. I dizzed all the strips and rerolled. Now I had 14 balls in one container. Next I repeated this process for the second wheel but split from the other end.I spun a worsted yarn from the first set onto the bobbin. The second set went onto the next bobbin. When I plyed the bobbins there was my jewel yarn with flashes of colour.

Tracy White inspires

This week has been the best ever for the Thames Creative Fibre group. On Monday several hundred fibre enthusiasts attended our Open Day. One of the traders was Inspire Fibres aka Tracy White who is a consummate spinner and felter herself. Over the following 4 days Tracy gave 4 workshops to our club members. Her extensive knowledge and love of fibres is apparent in her teaching. Her respect for the fibre and her commitment to supplying her customers with good quality fibre shows in all her work. All her dyed silk and wool is double dyed to ensure deep dye penetration. You can contact Tracy at tracywhite@inspire.net.nz

I was fortunate to host the Core Wrapping Workshop. Here is Tracy and a bobbin of corewrapped yarn on her Majacraft Little Gem wheel.

She had a wonderful selection of her fibres with her including silks, merino, and suri alpaca.

We also learnt how to make punis using a Majacraft blending board -they look so delicious http://www.majacraft.co.nz/blog/

and how to make them using a wild carder.

I was fascinated by the technique of using a diz to draw multiple colours of fibre from a hackle to make a beautiful blends of colours and textures. The dizzed fibre is just behind the hackle. The diz and hackle were also made by Majacraft. http://www.majacraft.co.nz/preparation.php

We had a fun day and can't wait to do this again next year. Thank you Tracy.

Flower rug for Kay

One of our oldest members of Thames Creative Fibre, who is now unable to craft,
asked the group to decorate a white felted rug. We all made knitted, crocheted or felted flowers then a few members took on the task of designing the rug and stitching on all the flowers. The result is stunning.

Creative Fibres Hamilton Exhibition

A feature of the exhibition this year was pop up fashion. From time to time models walked through the exhibition wearing hand crafted garments Here are three of our Thames members looking very beautiful. From left, Sheryll wearing a suit and fascinator made by Raewyn Penrose, Joanne wearing a dress and fascinator also crafted by Raewyn and Cassandra wearing a dress and hat made by Sheryll Wenzlick.

Thames Creative Fibres members had a number of pieces accepted for exhibition.

Above is one of Donna Hansby's delightful birds.

I was thrilled my jacket was accepted as I'd never entered anything spun or knitted previously.

 I particularly admired this carpet bag made by felting prefelts onto black felt

and this colourful handspun knitted vest and hat.

Dream jacket Finished

For years I've wanted to make a handspun version of this pattern. My sister knitted one from commercial yarn and it was a showstopper. People kept stopping her to admire it.

The blue and wine yarns were spun from Corriedale from the Anna Gratton of The Little Wool Company. I

carded some purple and pink silk into the blue wool.

The thick and thin of the cuffs was some synthetic yarn I'd had for 30 years. From it I chose the other colours.

The brilliant lime green from the Anna Gratton was the first sliver I chose. I spun it worsted.


I dyed some superwash merino orange then added sari silk. The sari silk was spun together so I unspun it then cut it into 2" (5 cm) lengths that I shredded and carded into the orange.

The final yarn was superwash merino that I painted then spun and chain (Navajo) plyed.

I used several needle sizes - the bands and collar were knitted on the largest needles. The green of the body was knitted on the smallest needles because I wanted it to hug my body and the multiyarn areas were knitted on slightly larger needles because I wanted more stretch there.