Continuous bullion yarn

This is the wonderful second yarn for the Bendigo workshop. Not a great deal of yardage in this continuous bullion, but wonderful texture.

The only problem is that the core yarn gets too much twist and can break! Lots of interesting noises made then! It might pay to run the yarn through the wheel twice, so that I can ply back with the textured commercial boucle and finish with a fine black yarn.

I think I really need to knit a swatch with all these yarns. That would mean doing another set. I've wanted to with some dyed fleece. Way too much spinning.

Sample stashes

I finished the first workshop skein...hooray! Managed to find a matching boucle to ply in and some black to finally balance the yarn. I'm happy with the result. Though, photography does not give the full impact. It's washing now which might yield extra surprises.

Talking about all those samples you make, thanks knitspingirl, has got me thinking about what to do with them.

This is my sample stash stored in a box. Always store them all in the one place! At least you know you've got too much and need to do something, rather than them lurking everywhere.

However, as I'm sure everyone is very well organised, and it really doesn't take you much further than feeling a little uneasy/guilty about what to do with it all, got me to thinking. I know, a dangerous thing!

Next thing to do was sort into major colour groups and see what I had. It looked a bit more organised.

These are the four groups that seem to have some promise! What next you ask. I don't know, I've got this far. Need to think about it......stripes, mosaic knitting....

Healthy, wealthy & wise

Well, two out of three ain't bad. After a shocking headache most of Monday, most unusual for me, I feel happy again. I think one of those...slept awkwardly, went walking without water...for longer than usual, sat on the computer, new glasses......the list goes on. Anyway much better. We're also being careful with computer usage...only in the morning, till the end of the month. We've almost busted our download limit and mornings are off-peak.



I have had a good time. Thought I'd use up all that spare dye that's been leftover from a couple of projects. All in the pot. I have some commercial undyed yarns bought from Wangaratta Woollen Mills on the last trip to Harrietville, so I skeined two and dip dyed. Dyeing a third, adding the next third and then the final third for the last 10 minutes. It's a sort of wine colour and I'm quite happy.





Then, I thought I'd overdye the commercial autumn colour I won. Unfortunately, I forgot that it was still a hot pot and just dumped it in. I think I gave it a bit of a shock, it's slightly felted. I am quite happy with the result, but I think I'll do another, properly. I am looking to make an Autumn leaf scarf with this lot, I just need to get the right shape.









I've also started work on the workshop for the Bendigo spinners. The first yarn we're going to create is a multi-ply yarn. I've based the workshop around the multi-colour tops, like those you get from First Editions. For this yarn I've spun 20gm of the multi-colour, then 10gm each of a brown and black which should match. For added complexity, the brown is an unwashed fleece, so I won't know what the final yarn will look like till I wash it!




I've plyed the brown with the colour to balance, the black with the colour with extra twist. I've then plyed these together with extra twist and will add some fine commercial yarn, probably black. I'd like some texture, but I don't think I have anything suitable.

I have to time all of this!

Sometimes wool is best!

I've just finished spinning the mix of bamboo, ramie, soy and carbon. It has to be the worst spinning experience...the bamboo goes everywhere, the carbon and soy are completely inelastic and who knows about the ramie it got lost. Very different amounts of twist were required depending on the fibre, though that is my fault for choosing this particular path!

I decided to spin another single of silky wool and ply them together. This certainly improved the look and handle and I'm starting to be happy.

As there is only about 30gms I thought I might also dye at the same time, some fluffy wool, whose provenance is unknown, but might provide a nice contrast to the handspun skein.

I had some Landscape Desert Pea to dye the two skeins. I've used this on wool before and got quite a strong red, but failed to this time. Not sure what the problem was, but it's a decent result.

The dye took very unevenly on the multi-fibre dye, as you would expect.

This is going to be quite a challenge to get an interesting scarf. At least it's bright.

Vogue Knitting - Winter 2007/2008

Yes, I finally got around to writing about this latest issue. I can't quite get used to the 'VK' title. Doesn't say much!

I don't know about you but I always have problems with sleeve lengths and in this issue is quite a different way to think about measuring for length. It makes complete sense to me...basically the measurement is from the centre back/centre neck along the top of the sleeve/arm. I'm definitely going to try this.

I did like this issue, but there weren't many patterns that I wanted to knit for myself. I did like this for some intarsia knitting. How about dyeing a range of fleece colours - cream, greys, brown, even black the same colour and using that. And at my age, perhaps a t-shirt length rather than a dress.

Hope you like my favourite magazines list. Not quite complete yet.

Seaweed scarf

What a busy day. Pulled the back panel of last years Sheep and Wool entry to do some vital repairs. Wonderful fun surrounded by yarn, fibre, finished products and dogs.....obviously not my house.


The night was filled with my Beginners Spinners class. This is the half way mark and they are all doing very well. I have not doubt, that they'll walk away feeling very pleased with themselves. Next week we do some random dyeing. After four weeks of cream fleece, it will be time for a bit of colour.


Then I went home and finished my seaweed scarf. I absolutely love this. I hope it finds a home.

More Wrist warmers

I'm feeling inspired again, so I've created a couple of more wristies. One's a little too Christmassy for my liking, but who knows.

The cuff uses a mixture of black commercial yarn from Littlewood fleece...so it's good, and, my handspun fibre sandwich yarn. It's basically all rib.

The only thing I'm concerned about is the price I need to charge. As I haven't sold any yet, this is still an unanswerable question. I guess, let's see what winter brings.