One HOT Sunday

Last Sunday was the Handweavers' and Spinners' Guild Yarra Bend Spin-In, which is held every year on the last Sunday in January. Not a great time to spin, it is Summer, but was inaugurated in the Bicentenial Year and as Australia Day is January 26th.....Anyway it has become an annual event, I've only been attending on and off for the last few years.

It is lovely to sit next the the river, the Yarra, under a large shady tree with friends, old and new, and spin. This year is was predicted to be HOT. I did go, as did a number of stalwarts and it was lovely. I did leave at lunchtime, so beat the worst of the day. I had lunch and a movie with hubby; highly recommend 'The Kings Speech'!

I was working on my 10x10 challenge for Experimental Spinning which consisted of some Ixchel Angora/Merino blue top which I had purchased TWO years ago at Bendigo during the Australian Sheep and wool show and which I really needed to use as I still have this years purchase.

Water, was my theme, it seems to preoccupy all of us at the moment, though today has been replaced with thoughts of wind and those that have to face it.......

I decided to wrap the top around a cotton core thinking about water, it's smoothness, roughness, waves and calm. I like it so far.

I do have to finish it and ply it (with what?....don't I always have this problem?) by Saturday.

Oh well,

Cricket in Sydney

Yep, hubby, youngest son and I drove up to Sydney for the last test match of the current Ashes cricket tour. After a disappointing Melbourne test we hoped for, at least, a high spirited effort by the Australian team. We saw lots of runs made (by the Brits), lots of good bowling (by the Brits), an incredibly vocal Barmy army (supporting the Brits) and a win (by the Brits)!

The Barmy Army was amazing, not only confirming that we should be a republic by their very pointed rendition of God Save the Queen. (It can't come fast enough.) Not only this but they managed to steal Waltzing Matilda; though I couldn't make out the words, which was just as well as their Mitchell Johnson chant was very pointed!

Anyway, it was lovely to see the Sydey Cricket ground, with it's heritage Members stands and being a smaller ground, how close you felt to the play.

Of course, if you go to the cricket you have to take some knitting. Sitting in the sun on a couple of hot days did slow me down but I did get some done.

I chose to take this pattern from Vogue Knitting Holiday 2008 edition. It's working up beautifully with the yarn I purchased with my Sheep to Shawl win prize of Zara by Filatura di Crosa. It's a beautiful yarn, very soft but with good definition so you can see all the work in the pattern. I'm not sure I have enough, but if it becomes a sleeveless vest that's OK with me. That's what I'm likely not to be able to do.

For the spinners, this yarn is very interesting. It is a very high twist yarn with a beautiful softness. This has alot to do with the Italian extrafine Merino, but also that the twist is achieved by combining SIX two ply yarns together. Whilst there is alot of twist overall, each component is softly spun. This is much easier to achieve with machines as there's alot of spinning. I'm very happy with my choice!

Cashmere

Doesn't it conjure up pure luxury....cashmere......

I was very generously given a very large amount of cashmere (dehaired, long guard hairs taken out, time saver....) by a member of the HWSG. It was way to much to keep to oneself without feeling extremely selfish...sigh.....So I decided that we could have a session at Experimental Spinning playing with this beautiful fibre.

That was on Saturday and we had lots of fun. Because it is both a very expensive and very short fibre, it is often combined with other fibres. We used silk, silky wool, fine merino and even pink! Beautiful rolags were created and I can't wait to see all the resulting yarns.

I went home and decided to split my 20gms into four and spin a yarn with four different treatments.

1. Mixed with Silky wool (optim), a treated wool that I thought would work well, but it didn't really card well with the cashmere and separated a bit from the cashmere when spinning.

2. Mixed with 18micron merino. This was immediately nicer than the Silky wool and whilst there is a slight different in the pictures, both carding and spinning were much improved.

3. Mixed with Tussah silk. As you can see from the rolags it is beautiful. I wasn't sure that this would work. Even though it came in top form it was still quite long, but I suspect that the critical factor in both the carding and spinning is the thickness, or in this case, fineness of the mixing fibre. For best results they probably do need to be close in micron count.

4. I just spun the cashmere as it came.

I did wonder if I'd put in too much twist for the this skein. Too much twist and I'll lose the softness of the cashmere. I also wanted to keep the different treatments together, so I decided to Navaho ply my single, creating a relatively thick yarn.

This could be a problem as these fabulous fibres are very warm. The resulting scarf will be knitted in a very open lace. I'll show you when it's done.

Oops, forgot.....some things I'd like to try: silk noil and cashmere, what about silk waste with cashmere, fluffy around a core......what else?