Mittens

This is the first project involving knitting up something I've spun. These mittens are my own design, the grey is the oatmeal blue faced leicester, and the blue is a Louisa Harding angora.

The Yarn Museum

I found a website that shows pictures of yarn that's been handspun. They're inviting people (beginners included - luckily for me) to send in pictures that fall under the category "Natural". I thought a bit about what I could do and decided to avoid the obvious murky/fluffy yarn and do something that reflected the contrasting colours in a new plant I'd bought. This is two ply, black welsh mountain with silk hankies. Two natural colours that provide a sharp contrast and made me feel dizzy whilst plying them.

Various yarns

Here are a few yarns. The two white ones are from the fleece my mum gave me. They were spun "in the grease" which made drafting a bit difficult so I 'm washing the fleece before I spin any more. The grey is the herdwick spun from the rolags (earlier picture) and the brown and white is black welsh mountain plyed with silk hankies.

Nice and clean

Here is the washed fleece, nearly dry and ready to be carded

If pigs are dirty...

They say pigs are dirty - look at the muck coming out of this fleece! I tried to spin some "in the grease" but soon got annoyed by the sticky grease getting all over everything. I was also a bit concerned that I might be spreading it around the house on my hands. So it was into the bathtub for a cold overnight soak. Look at the colour of the water! When I drained the bath the next day there was a layer of silt on the bottom of the bath. Still, hopefully I won't have as many problems drafting it as I did with the first greasy lot. Even after carding sections of dirt made drafting an even yarn difficult.

Herdwick rolags

This is a really interesting fleece called Herdwick. It's very rough, with thick black and white fibres amongst the softer grey. Pictures of the spun wool to follow.

More onion skins ..

This is rather a cheeky picture - the light makes it look a far more lustrous colour than it actually is