Chocolate

It seems to have been a very chocolatey (?) year. What with spinning chocolate yarns earlier in the year, and ending the year with Chocolate at Experimental Spinning on Saturday.

For the last couple of years, we've been finishing off in December with a celebratory fibre sandwich. This is a wonderful way to do something as a group, to bust a little stash and generally share.

This year the theme was Chocolate, of course! We started with a layer of chocolate, consisting of chocolate fleece, tops and some caramel fleece. Then a layer of strawberry jam...it was turning into a chocolate cake. This was made up of silk waste, wool top, cut up fabric, all red, then a little bit of cream, another layer of chocolate and caramel. We finished it off with sprinkles, cut up cotton threads.

This was split up into the number of people who participated and we each spun our portion of the cake.

At the same time we managed to indulge in some real chocolate sponge with home grown raspberries.

And this is my bobbin full of chocolate. Spun directly as it came from the cake. Sometimes I've carded a sandwich before spinning, but this time I just wanted it straight. It's waiting for me to spin a very fine chocolate fleece single which I will use as the second ply.

The fog's lifting

It's an interesting feeling coming out of a head cold, that feeling that you can't think slowly lifts and at some point you realise you still have a functioning brain. This is where I am and hopefully not too much chaos has occurred. I haven't managed to clean the house, with an 18th birthday coming up this is a problem, still a week to go before the first influx of people!

Anyway, I did manage to complete some work, though some is still going having been frogged, oh so many times.

These yarns are a case in point. Yes, the last of the chocolate. The first is the chocolate wrapper, I was running out of wrappers, but managed to find more. Faced with more searching I decided to just finish adding in the last of the fabric. I was very tired at the time....

Then not being content to just ply the rest together I needed to do something, but could I think of something interesting and innovative.......no, just decided to rely on the standby knot yarn. I like how it turned out, but....

More pictures will come as they finish drying and I get my head around recharging the camera battery.

What did I finish this week?

I've decided that I'm going to document the articles that I finish each week.....just in case you're interested in anything. Most will end up in my Etsy shop, but not always. I often don't put things on for a variety of reasons: the main being time, however, photographs are often the reason. If I don't feel that I've managed to give a good indication of colour, texture or form, I'll leave them to my market stall, so people can see them for real. Occasionally, I have articles that I need people to feel or try on because they're a bit odd!


So here they are for this week:




Red Onion with Alum mordant dyed silk scarf with folds



2 skeins of chocolate centres yarn (100gm and 90gm)

Purple fingerless mittens with bobbles down the edge of the buttons. (sold)

Doesn't feel like alot of stuff, but there is a pile of fingerless mittens still to put buttons on and more chocolate fleece to spin!

So, if you're interested in anything, don't hesitate to contact me: tsbtextile@yahoo.com.au

Past midnight

Sometimes you just have to finish things. Not for any particular reason, except perhaps, that if it goes on much longer I'm going to start disliking this!


So, last night, I finished spinning the 2nd single in a slightly fluffier, heavier way and plyed it with the buttons, finishing just past midnight.



Note: it takes a long time to add buttons to the yarn, but is surprisingly satisfying.




I'm now washing the yarn and am looking forward to finding out what it weighs. Not usually a big issue, I'm guessing 150gm, but what will the buttons add?



I've now got enough fleece left for a chocolate wrapper yarn, if only I can find where I left the wrapping!

PS. It's call 'Chocolate centres'

I need chocolate!

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, I managed to sell a record amount, enough in fact to meet my, very loose, target for the month. I'm particularly pleased as it was a variety of work that sold to new, returning, friends and fellow stallholders. I met a fellow Etsy traveller whose work is amazing (http://www.gitte.etsy.com/) and I think made some new fans.

Unfortunately, all the delight of the day was tempered with the performance of the market. It was much better than last month, so must be put in the work-in-progress basket. Next month we relaunch with a new name 'Ivanhoe Makers Market', hopefully with sufficient publicity to make it a wonderful market. As usual our visitors remarked on both the beautiful space that we inhabit and the wonderful work it contains......fingers crossed.

I've come home to more spinning. I managed to finish my 'chocolate drop' yarn for the market and it was renamed by a lovely friend of the market as 'tim tam' and I think it might have to have a identity change.

I'm now spinning 'chocolate centres' which consists of spinning a fine-ish single and threading buttons on as I go. A little bit tedious and there are other methods, I just wanted the buttons to be a well integrated as I can. I'm going to spin a fluffier single to match. I am enjoying the play of worsted and woollen spinning and the change in texture and colour you can get just by employing a different spinning method.

The naturally chocolate coloured fleece that I'm spinning should have enough for another yarn, so 'chocolate wrapper' springs to mind. In my compost bin (full of bits of leftover yarns, etc) was some silk fabric that was leftover from my silk scarves. If I have enough I'll add it as I ply.

Now all I have to do is see if I can find some real chocolate!

Chocolate

3D5S visited Handorf's chocolate cafe (http://www.hahndorfs.com.au/) and were able to take pictures of this beautiful product.

As inspiration they have everything: beautiful to look at, luscious to taste, sticky to touch, I'm not always sure what smells of chocolate conjur up, and I must say that they are a bit silent, though descriptions of each of them do elicit 'mmmmmmm' sounds.



Chocolate itself reminds me of silk and of course, what delightful colours are dropped into the centres. The repetition of shape also can suggest pattern.



I have a small amount of chocolate coloured fleece that was given to me and I did want to do something special....All I have to do is find the right filling.