"Mostly Harmless"

To celebrate International Towel Day, I have spun this very special yarn. The basic yarn is a wool/alpaca blend hand dyed is shades ranging from midnight blue to intergalactic black. Included in this are various other fibres, like sari silk, angelina and angora, representing stars, nebulae, planets, and the various other features an intrepid galactic hitchhiker might encounter on his travels. the singles have been plied together with the cassette tape of the BBC recording of the Primary Phase of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and of course, a towel.

Imagine, if you will, a hat knit from this material - you would always know where your towel is and therefore be in control of your life, and enjoy all the benefits of having a towel, and there are no known reports of anyone wearing such a hat ever being bothered by Vogon poetry. You would also be popular among your friends, and have a decent chance of being stood a round or two of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters to share and enjoy.

This will be available for sale in Maggie"s Etsy shop.

Maggie

I took this portrait at the fibre show on Saturday, just to finish off the roll of film :) I think it worked pretty well!

More Art Yarn

Maggie is making more beautiful art yarn for her Etsy shop. This one has vintage fabrics, rick-rack, thread, handspun wool, and buttons!

For more details, go to her store!

New Etsy Photos

We - that is, Maggie - decided that her products might sell better on her Etsy site if we - that is, me - took more pictures. I'm now doing five photographs for each of her handspun yarn listings, most of which will have some object (coin, wine bottle, etc.) in the image as a size reference.

Here is one of the first sets:

First Projects on the Columbine

Well, we finally got the Columbine up and running, much thanks to my good friend, John Fleeger. Because of the wheel's smaller diameter, it needs to be treadled a bit faster than other wheels, which is challenging for me as I have been trying hard recently to slow down. It does take a bit of getting used to, but we are becoming good friends now. Here are the first two projects I did on the wheel:

This is a bulky single (I only have one bobbin for the Columbine at the moment) made from "day's end" roving from High Prairie Fibers in eastern Iowa, it's a blend of wool, silk, mohair and angelina. The skein is 4 ounces (114 grams), 214 yards (196 metres).

This is sock yarn that I spun on the Babe, and plied on the Columbine. It's wool - we think it may be Corriedale - in natural colour. The skein is 8.65 ounces (245 grams), 1112 yards (1017 metres), and took about 24 hours to spin and four hours to ply.

UPS-i-daisy!

I'm not going to name names here, but I'm very UPSet over how a certain company delivered my new spinning wheel.

Something REALLY heavy must have landed hard on the box to cause it to burst its bottom like this...

...and to bend the adjuster and frame as severely as this.

The company in question has been informed of this, and I hope we won't see any more foul-UPS like this in the future.

Knitted Up!

Remember this spinning project? Well, at long last it's finished, and Maggie has turned this yarn into...

...these beautiful socks!

Spun Up

I have finished spinning Marianne's lovely green roving. I'm not sure what it will become, but I think it's really nice.

Being spun on the Schacht Ladybug...

...plied and skeined.

I took these pictures with the RB67.

Christmas Presents!

Finally! I got some of my films processed, and am able to show you some of the wonderful presents I got at the Spinners' Christmas  party.

First, my "Secret Santa" was my good friend and fellow photographer, Marianne, who gave me a whole bag of goodies - the green bump is Brown Sheep superwash dyed with copper, the smaller one is cormo/alpaca dyed (of course) olive :0) The Dyers Companion is a most interesting book that has been in print since 1806. Also in my bag, though not pictured, was one on Marianne's own beautiful calenders.

A little while ago, gave Jill a pack of Tayto crisps from my precious stash. In return she made the bag into this lovely origami box. 

I am really lucky to have such generous and talented friends!

My Spinning Project

From this:
Beautiful Lincoln roving in natural colours.

To this:
I spun the roving, and Navajo plied it, to keep the colours separate.
It's over to the knitter now. I wonder how it will turn out?

Serried Schacht Spinners

Four Schacht spinning wheels lined up and ready for action.

Abi Hutchison of High Prairie Fibers invited a group of to visit her beautiful home and studio in eastern Iowa for a "Spinners' Play Day*" yesterday. Abi and her husband, Michael, who runs Iowa Parrot Rescue gave us a really wonderful time. We got to see old friends and new, the beautiful parrots, the new bird house, Abi's fabulous studio with her big drum carder and pin drafting machine, Michael and some of his friends played great music for us, and there was excellent food. A good time was had by all, and I, for one, am looking forward to the next such event!

*OK, there were spinners, knitters, crocheters, weavers, and all manner of fibre artists there.

Jill makes Navajo plying look easy

Michael provides music for us to spin to!

Maggie's Matchless...

...and here is her spinning wheel:


A beautifully crafted Schacht Matchless

In a spin

Here is my biggest "real" spinning project to date:
12 ozs "smoke" roving from High Prairie Fibers (80% Suffolk, 20% Mohair) + about 30 hours' work = 1379 yards of 2-ply yarn :)