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.

Building the stash at Cambridge

At the recent Cambridge Creative Fibres exhibition I indulged myself in some beautiful random dyed sliver from Lyn Walsh of Fibres to Go. I had seen her colourway, Paua, before and couldn't wait to get some. The colours are taken from the inner shell of the New Zealand paua or abalone.

I bought 300 g of merino (80%) and silk (20%) dyed predominately in blues, turquoise and green with splashes of pink.  I've decided to spin the sliver my version of fine then Navaho (chain) ply the singles.

I was half way through spinning the first length when I had an idea. If I wanted longer lengths of a colour I could spin from either end of each 100g skeins whenever the colours at the ends were the same. So I've decided to use the yarn I've already spun for sleeves and the rest for areas of knitting that have more stitches.

Another length that begged to come home with me was this one of 19 micron merino dyed in jewel colours. At this stage I think it will likely become a scarf.

My final purchase was a 0.7 kg share in a white alpaca fleece from Ridgedale Alpacas in Katikati. The soft locks are long and have a lovely crimp. I'm looking forward to washing, dyeing and spinning alpaca for the first time.

one lock of alpaca

Dyeing Noro style

I fell in love with a Noro Jacket pattern. It was knitted in garter stitch using alternate double rows of Silk Garden sock yarn. For night after night I searched the net looking for the colours that matched those in the photo in the Noro magazine. I managed to purchase 3 balls of one colourway from Laughing Hens in England but I mismanaged the purchase of the second colourway and finished up with balls that didn't suit the first ones. Grrrrrr.

I was determined to get the colourway I wanted and it was clear I would have to dye it myself. I had several cones of white Perendale yarn that I could use. I carefully wound the first Noro colourway onto my niddynoddy. Next I counted the number of turns for each shade until I reached the end of the first repeat. One repeat was a staggering 100m. Luckily the knitting pattern had a large photo of the back so I could work out the sequence of colours for the colourway I wanted which was:
pale grey       18m
pale mauve   12m
deep mauve  12m
turquoise        8m
deep mauve  12m
pale mauve   12m
dull gold       14m
cream           12m

I knew it was about 25m from one end of our house to the other so I set up, or rather set sideways, a chair at each end to use to wind the yarn. Altogether I wound 800m which amounted to 250g. I put various coloured ties on the skein to indicate the different colours.

 

Then I did some challenging chaining of the sections that were to be dyed the same colour, worked out the colours and did the dyeing. It worked.

 Dryed and dyed skein below

All that remained was to put the yarn back on the two chairs and wind it up. Luckily my friend, Catherine was here to help. It took two of us. One to walk the 800m while winding the yarn on the ball winder and the other to separate the yarn being wound from the rest of the skein as dyeing had very slightly felted the strands together. My only concern was that once the yarn was dyed it looked fatter than the Noro Silk Garden Sock however the two colourways are knitting together well.
You can see one of my dyed complete colourways on the back starting on the left with deep mauve and ending at white.

 

Fractal waistcoat

Here is the finished waistcoat. The superwash Polwarth was soft and springy. My grandson loved the colours and the teddybear buttons.

 

Here is Sam wearing it. He looks more than happy.

 

I liked the way the bands of colour showed in the knitting.

 

Mitred squares rug

I've seen many beautiful rugs at the annual exhibitions of Operation Cover-up in Thames, New Zealand. People from throughout the Coromandel Peninsula generously knit rugs, hats and jumpers for children in Romania. I was intrigued by the mitred square, also known as domino, rugs.

After I'd completed my Spinning course (see Creative Fibres Courses) last year, I found I had lots of small balls of experimental yarn in a range of natural colours.  When I sorted through my stash I found many others so I decided to make a mitred square rug entirely of yarn spun from naturally coloured fleeces. Since I began the rug, friends have given me more coloured fleece.

The pattern I used was based on one developed by Chris de Longpré. I found it on her website pattern for rug. 

The rug includes fleeces from Polwarth, Gotland, Corriedale, Romney, and Cormo and Perendale. I love the soft shades and the sculptural ridges of the squares.