Friday 26 March 2010

Demonstration

I've been asked to do a spinning demonstration at the Sutton Community Farm tomorrow. Apparently, one of the things that participants really wanted to learn about was spinning and dyeing. Tess and I are more than happy to spread the word about this wonderful craft! I will be taking along some yarns, too. Hopefully we can get quite a few people interested!

Monday 22 March 2010

Aftermath

The craft fair was really quite an enjoyable day out. It was great to meet some Ravellers and members of the Croydon knitting group. Thanks to all for their support! The spinning fibre and sock yarns went down very well. I do wish I had taken more yarn - there were a couple of disappointed faces when I said that was the last of it. Skye, the Angora bunny seemed happy enough being admired. She really is a dab-hand at all this show malarky.

I was a little disappointed at how un-crafty the show was. There seemed to be an awful lot of bought-in 'gifts' rather than hand-crafted items which, I thought, defeated the object. Also, there was absolutely no advertising for the event. There were, however, some DELICIOUS cakes! I bought enough cupcakes to feed an army, plus the nicest cake I've had in ages - chocolate and Baileys.

This week I'll be updating here with some more sock yarn, spinning fibre and some lace-weight, for those of you who are so inclined.

Back soon!

Wednesday 17 March 2010

What's been cooking

The steamer has been working hard over the last few weeks, and I'm hoping to dye some more fibre and yarn before the craft fair on Sunday. These are merino rovings, all approximately 100g:

Oceanus - SOLD

Floralia - SOLD

Sophocles

Fish pond - hand-painted 2-ply merino DK, 100g (approx 300 yards) - SOLD


Oceanus - hand painted 2-ply merino DK, 100g (approx 300 yards) - SOLD


And this is about 100g hand-painted Falkland roving spun up to approximately a DK weight called Jellybabies' Picnik. It was chain plied to preserve the colours which came out very prettily.

I don't have any yardages, but will definitely be measuring these and updating when I post again with my newest hand-spun. Am so looking forward to the craft fair on Sunday!

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Spinning and more...

Well, the past couple of weeks have been filled with major fibre shenanigans, (updates and photos to follow, I promise!) including spinning Falkland and merino/silk blends and carding some GIANT batts. My lack of updates here, though, have been down to all the preparation, following through and post-processing of another project which came to a head on March 6th when I was my friend Hannah's wedding photographer. Here are a few of my favourite shots of the day:






Back to fibre-y stuff: I will be at the Fairfield Spring Fair in Croydon on Sunday March 21st! My wares will accompany those of my friend Tess of Silkwood, and one or two of her Angora bunnies. The fair is only on for one day, and will be open from 10am until 4pm. It promises to be a great day!

Normal service will resume this week.

Monday 1 March 2010

Productivity

The weekend was really quite productive. While I didn't dye as much as I had hoped, (only about 500g of spinning fibre) I did manage to spin up over 200g of Falkland wool, half of which has been plied. It's looking rather lovely, in a sock-to-DK weight. The light was terrible all weekend, though, much as it has been for many weeks, now, so the opportunity for photographing anything did not present itself. It seems absolutely typical that, today, the sun is shining and there has not been a single cloud in the bright blue sky and I won't get home until it is dark. Before the end of this week I will definitely have more photos to show.

Meanwhile, the socks seem to be coming on well enough. While I love the colours and the striping of Noro, I am fast falling out of love with its unyielding rigidity once knitted. There just seems to be no give in the sock I am working on right now, which disturbs me a little. Well, only time will tell so I had better finish it off quickly...