Tuesday 28 May 2013

Good things come to those who wait, and wait and wait........

Finally after nearly two weeks my Bliss Wheel has arrived! 

Here is the box


Beautifully packed - just love the tube for the bobbins - and it comes with a screwdriver for you to assemble the wheel with...


These are all the bits and bobs laid out and ready to go....


The main parts go together very simply - this in about 10mins into the assembly and just the treadle and spindle to go..


This is my contribution to the process - adding the hooks!


Viola - the completed wheel ready to go................ and here is the first singles I have spun on the Bliss!  All in less than an hour............



The best thing so far - I can spin from my wheelchair! So that's a big plus!!




Sunday 26 May 2013

Foraging for colour.....

For part of the display we (the SpinDyeWeavers) put on for demonstrations a friend and I have been working on samples of English Sheep Breeds and already have really nice selection (will post pictures after the Easton Arts Trail June 15-16th) of fleece, spun and knitted yarn.  Yes I know this has been done before but not by us!

In the same theme and in response to many questions about dyed fleece and yarns I have decided to make up a similar display of natural dyed samples - again I have done a braid of fleece, spun and knitted yarn.  For this I have been using some Cotswold fleece that had being lingering in the stash for some time and I am really please with the way things are turning out...

First off, was cochineal.  For this I duly pounded the dried beetles in a plastic bag using a rolling pin, poured boiling water over the beetles and allowed to steep over night.  The next day I simmered the mixture gently for around an hour - and the result was a deep pink liquor.  For this experiment I mordant three 50grams Cotswold top with Alum and Cream of Tartar and one was dyed using the cochineal liquor, no modifier and the braid on the right is the result.


The next one I modified with a copper solution and that is the middle braid and the final one I modified with citric acid and that's the braid on the left......... three very different colours from one dye pot!

Having been bitten by the natural dyeing bug I was on the look out for another project.  Onion skins, well to be precise shallot skins - 1 kilo for pickling and about 50grams of skins for me.  Again an Alum mordant (on the right) and one modified with copper (on the left)



Jenny Dean's book of Natural Dyeing suggests nettles, and there were loads of nettles by the entrance to the Caravan Site we stayed on at Tredegar House in Newport.  So we harvested a bag of nettle tips and as soon as we arrived home on Tuesday a big bucket of nettles was steeping, and the fibre was mordant with Alum, in preparation for a dyeing session on Wednesday.


This is the resulting colours from left to right - no modifier just nettle dyed, modified with copper, modified with iron and because there was still dye stuff a braid of nettle and citric acid which actually has more colour than the photo shows. The nettles are now steeping in rain water (natural bugs) to make a liquid feed for the garden - nothing goes to waste in Chez Sassy.....

While on a food shop I casually slipped a carton of blackberries into the trolley - not for eating, but just to see what colours I could get with them - a really subtle pale almost lavender, no modifier and just a Alum mordant.


Now I have run out of suitable yarn - not that I really don't have any fibre you understand, but I had made the decision to use an English breed not Merino or fancy blends, so a kilo of Cheviot will be winging its way from the lovely people at World of Wool after the Bank Holiday, so until then I shall have content myself with spinning and knitting up samples.



But I am already saving coffee grains and have persuaded Mr S that a Red Cabbage should be an the shopping list for next week - apparently you can get amazing colours from the humble brassica!

Fingers crossed I may actually get my Bliss Tuesday - a second wheel has been dispatched..........  and just for tempters........... there is another wheel that has long been on my WOOT list that will coming home very soon!

Wednesday 22 May 2013

No news is not Good News

I have to report that I am still waiting for delivery of my Bliss spinning wheel 10 days since I ordered it and 7 days since it was dispatched................... 

As you can guess I am not a very happy bunny, although I have been told that it will definitely be here by Friday - if it isn't expect an eruption of volcanic proportions over the West Country.  Despite the tracking stuck at 'sorting for country of destination' I have had to wait until today to get any sense at all out of the suppliers and TNTPost Netherlands - the man at TNTPost UK was very helpful, but unable to actually to do anything because the parcel was still in the Netherlands and until the tracking change to arrived in country of destination he couldn't chase it up!  It does come to something when I can remember the long tracking number, so many times I have entered it....  Currently nothing has changed.........................

This situation was made worse by the fact that wheels ordered after mine were all delivered last week! So it wasn't much fun reading all the excited posts as wheel after wheel arrived, was unpacked and put together.....................

There were a lot of very disappointed faces when it failed to show at the spinning evening last night.

Not being able to play with my new toy I did make progress on the St Kilda Shawl


This the main part completed so not a small shawl by any means - before the border it is about 30" deep and 68" wide.  I say 'about' because it is impossible to stretch it out even though it is on my longest cable.  It has been a real labour of love the pattern isn't easy to memorise and because it is in garter stitch not easy to see a mistake until you run out/or have too many stitches when you hit the marker.  Am now on the Old Shale border which is easy to remember but I am waiting for another ball of yarn to arrive having decided not to do the border in the first darker Boreray/Soay.

I am going to use that for another shawl this time done in a traditional Shetland style which begins with a garter stitch triangle with a wide border knitted from stitches pick up around the two long sides and finished with a picot edge.......

Hopefully I shall have GOOD NEWS very soon................







Sunday 12 May 2013

Will power - what's that?

Well I gave in and ordered a Bliss - I have absolutely no will-power and Mr S was making encouraging noises in the background - so I did the deed.  I was going to wait until they set up a better payment system, but I was sent a link to TransferWise for a free transaction so all fight just drained away................... by the end of this week this should be joining my ever growing collection of spinning wheels......



Mr S is keen to see how it is made and I am keen to see how it spins!  It seems to be about the same size as a Schacht Ladybug but with a single treadle.  Also it seems very sturdy and has a wipe down surface, so seems ideal for demos on wet grass etc.............





Wednesday 8 May 2013

Of Wonderwool and other spinning things

Last Sunday the girls and I went to Wonderwool - that's it really because if you have been then you know what a fantastic day we had, and it you haven't then GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO next year and get a truly memorable fibre fix.



I probably spent too much, well OK I spent too much but I had a great time, talked to loads of people, put faces to names and finally discovered what is so special about the Scotch Egg man!  When I wrote out exactly what I had bought it did seem to be rather a lot especially as my list was so small.  But the important things were a WooLee Winder for my Matchless, (but that doesn't count as I had pre-order and paid for it) and some extra bobbins and a fast whorl as I am determine that Demelza will spin my finest lace yarn ever.

For not only have I discovered the pleasure of woollen spinning from my punis I have also been experimenting with the concept of cross lacing having recently watch 'Three Bags Full' and 'Spinning Luxury Yarns' with Judith Mackenzie.

This is my Black Sparkle spun from punis - 55grams and 230yards, woollen spun and 2 plied..


In fact I liked this so much that I have blended another bigger batch this time using Amethyst in both merino and silk - but there is still more black than any other colour (is black a colour??).


And some more batts this time blending Oatmeal BFL, White Shetland, Turquoise Merino and Ramie - Bluebirds over White Cliffs..


I am particularly pleased with these especially as I have finally worked out how to roll them like in the shops - well I did need some help, but that's what friends are for aren't they - thanks Fibrefrog!

This is pure luxury - cashmere, superfine merino and white tussah silk - a special blend from World of Wool  which I spun cross laced, spun worsted and 2 plied 493yards.



This is some Camel and Silk that I am spinning using Scotch tension and crossing the yarn back and across to reduce the take up and increase the twist.  Pretty happy so far with the results of this technique.....



 

Monday 6 May 2013

I thought I'd take a picture or two.........

Gardening used to be a passion of mine before my accident - I had a greenhouse grew all my own flowers and veg from seed and generally spent many happy hours pricking out seedlings and tending tomatoes, cucumbers and the like.  But green houses and gardens aren't that wheelchair friendly and beautiful green swards of grass are a definite no-no as are gravel paths and cobble stones...  I still, however, like getting my hands in soil - never wear gloves - and generally pottering around in the garden. 

So Mr S and I went for raised beds, proper raised beds about two feet high, so that I could still get my hands dirty without falling out of my chair!  Finding after building one half that he really wasn't a bricks and mortar man Mr S built the second side out of timber (mostly left over from the construction of the roof to our extension and not designed to be used outside) and for nigh on five years they have done a great job, but the timber although we gave it a coat of preservative hasn't stood the test of time - we noticed that one side had a definite bow as the timber rotted and the soil pushed outwards....  Here I must comment on the fact that the brick wall, while not pretty was still standing vertical!!  But time had come to replace said beds with something more permanent.  We found the ideal replacement whilst watching Dragon's Den - WoodBlocX - although I seem to remember that some of the Dragon's weren't as impressed as we were..... viva Peter Jones!!




These are the blocks and the website says if you can build a wall with Lego then you can construct one with WoodBlocX - so Mr S ordered said blocks and last Saturday we started on the refurbishment of our garden walls.


Ably assisted by Daddy's little helper.................


All this in one afternoon....................



Then I left Mr S to it while I swanned off to Wonderwool and returned to find - the wall from the Black Lady end showing the water feature and the herb bed done.

 
Monday saw even more progress - this a really easy peasy way of building walls!
 
Here is the Master at work on Monday morning, and by evening apart from the clearing up and a few cosmetic touches, and more top soil -  il est fait!


 
Some views - from the sitting room door........

 
Looking towards the Black Lady....

 
The Soft Fruit end.........................................
 
And finally and 'in progress' shot of the foreman!
 

Wednesday 1 May 2013

Experimenting with colour the slow way..............

Wednesday May 1st - so a Woolly Wednesday and a quick update on happenings in Chez Sassy.

Besides spinning at a Model Railway Exhibition for two whole days in the main April has been a month of shawls and experiments.  Four shawls completed and a start made on my St Kida Shawl using the very expensive, but very beautiful Boreray and Soay yarn.


Two Romi's A Mysterious Shawl Kal - one in hand-spun and the other in MCN dyed by me.  The other two are designs from LindaCC - Siberian Iris and Spring Maple, both a delight to knit.





I have been experimenting with blending colours - inspired by Deb Menz's excellent book Color in Spinning which has a section on blending colours on a drum carder.  One of the things that I find really amazing is the way that black can disappear when mixed with other colours


This blend (the photo is lighter than real life) In Space...... consists of more black than the colours, but it is nearly lost once blended.  The proportions are 60grams Black (Merino and Silk) 30grams Amethyst (Merino and Silk) and 5grams of Fuchsia and 5grams of Rainbow Trilobal - so more black.... but where is it?

The second experiment is Solar Dyeing - that is using the heat of the sun to dye yarn in a sealed jar - so free energy.  As the weather forecast suggests that the temperature might actually get above freezing I thought today would be a good day to start the experiment.

First I soaked 100 grams of Merino and mordant the fibre in a solution of Alum 100 mil at 1:10 and Cream of Tartar (11/2 teaspoons).  But my Alum solution had crystallised so first I had to dissolve the crystals!

After allowing the fibre to cool a little I placed the fibre and some of the liquid into a Kilner Jar with 10 daffodil flowers, 20 mixed Peppercorns (Black, Red and Green), 1 Bay Leaf, 2 tiny strands of saffron and 1ml Botanical Colours Natural Dyes - Himalayan Rhubarb.  This last one is a but of a cheat, but at this time of the year there isn't a lot of natural stuff around so as you can see I have raided the spice cupboard.. 




This now gets left in the sun for several months........................ 

Oh, yes I did go to Wonderwool and had a fabulous time - retail therapy a real pick me up after a long winter!
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