Wednesday 10 January 2024

Spinning the Whiteface Dartmoor blend

With the festive celebrations and everything else it has taken me around about a month to spin up the entirety of this blend that I put together myself back in June 2023, but then there is just over 450g of it.  I finished spinning the first skein on 16th December 2023 and the last skein on 10th January 2024.


As I was spinning I had to keep thinning out the various lumps and bumps of different fibres and I also tried to make sure that there were at least a few strands of the Whiteface Dartmoor throughout the entirety of the length of the yarn.


All of the skeins are sport weight and they are reasonably soft considering the fact that majority fibre in the blend is Whitefaced Dartmoor.  The fibre content is 67.5% Whiteface Dartmoor, 13.5% Merino, 5% Corriedale, 4% Tussah Silk, 3% Hemp, 3% Longwool breed, 3% Sari Silk, 1% Angelina.  Unfortunately the Angelina doesn't show up in the photos but it is there and under the right lighting conditions you can see little purple sparkles in the yarn.  In total there is 454g/859m.


Thursday 21 December 2023

Blending the Purple Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Mist at Twlight

Yay, the last one!  Oh I really do ache now because it is tiring on the arms and shoulders loading up the blending hackle four times and dizzing off the blend, especially when you're using wool that you have stupidly managed to felt slightly during the dye process. I seriously need to look at my temperature probe in my dye kit, I'm positive it's on the fritz and I have tried changing the battery but that hasn't resolved the issue.  I think it's a damaged wire problem.  So, the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 19g Tussah Silk in shade Twilight, 9g Trilobal Nylon in shade Violet, 9g Silk Noil in shade Sea Mist, 10g Hemp that I dyed myself in June 2023 using cold water dyes and finally 153g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Mist at Twilight".


I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  I didn't pre-comb this one again either.  I've ended up with 200g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.


The fibre content of this one works out to be:

76.5% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
9.5% Tussah Silk
5% Hemp
4.5% Silk Noil
4.5% Trilobal Nylon

Wednesday 20 December 2023

Blending the Blue Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Evening at the Bay

Pushing on with my quest to tackle the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September, today I am tackling the blue one.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 21g Tussah Silk in shade Evening, 12g Trilobal Nylon in shade Bay, 9g Silk Noil in shade Colbalt, 11g Hemp in shade Bright Blue and finally 155g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Evening at the Bay".


I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  I didn't pre-comb this one this time, I learnt my lesson on the last one.  I've ended up with 208g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.


The fibre content of this one works out to be:

75% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
10% Tussah Silk
4% Silk Noil
6% Trilobal Nylon
5% Hemp
4% Silk Noil

Friday 15 December 2023

Blending the Yellow-Orange Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Saffron Sunshine

It's been a few weeks since I last played with my blending hackle, I've been doing some spinning as well as preparing for the festive celebrations, but I really need to tackle the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 15g Tussah Silk in shade Saffron, 7g Trilobal Nylon in shade Sun, 9g Silk Noil in shade Saffron, 9g Hemp that I dyed myself in June 2023 using cold water dyes and finally 139g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Saffron Sunshine".


I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  This time I decided to try combing it again before using it on the hackle to try to make it easier but I've lost quite a lot of fibre doing that and it hasn't made it feel any softer than just opening it up on the hackle during the blending.  I've ended up with 179g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.


The fibre content of this one works out to be:

77.5% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
8.5% Tussah Silk
5% Silk Noil
5% Hemp
4% Trilobal Nylon

Wednesday 13 December 2023

Spinning "Sky at Night" and "Magic"

This is the last of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  For this one I spun up the last of the black Jacob and then I spun up the 63g of 100% Merino from that I overdyed in June 2023, it was previously a repulsive "Hot Pink" or "Barbie Pink" colour that was in a "mixed bag" that I bought for my "ingredients cupboard" but I was never going to use it as it was so the time had come to over-dye it in a useable colour. 



I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until one of them ran out.  As it happened, I ran out of the Jacob before I ran out of Merino so once I had finished the yarn I made a small skein of Merino by making an Andean plying bracelet of the remaining single on the bobbin and plied it back to itself.  The main skein is 52.5% Jacob, 47.5% Merino.


I love the way the colours of the Merino are constantly changing between blue/lilac/purple and plying that with the black Jacob really makes the colours pop.  It is similar but different to "Night Sky" so I have called it "Sky at Night".

This has turned out to be sport weight and there is 99g/244m

For comparison between the two...


This one is the top one of the two, the bottom one is the one I spun up on 6th December 2023, which was a little thicker too.

The remaining Merino, I spun back to itself so that this little skein is 100% Merino and is sport weight and 12g/33m and I've called it "Magic".


Sunday 10 December 2023

Spnning "Mint Chocolate"

This is the third of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  I made sure I had a full bobbin of the black Jacob and then I spun up some odds and sods of green Merino that I had in my "ingredients cupboard", which is a cupboard full of small amounts of various fibres in various colours that you can buy as "mixed bags" etc and most are generally 10-30g sample sized bumps of fibre, into a gradient.  I made the green merino gradient by just simply pulling bits off of each adjoining colour and basic hand blending it a bit to make a "go-between" colour.  I did this for all of the adjoining colours.  It's far from perfect but it's worked pretty well.

31g Conifer, 18g Forest, 18g Leaf, 14g Peppermint
89g Natural black/brown Jacob 

As you will note, there was far more of the darkest green than any of the other 3 greens and I could have decided to not use all of it but I did use it all and my thinking was that I could use this to my advantage if I make a semi-circular shawl that starts with just a few stitches and increases with each row. I would have quite a deep section of the lightest colour and then as the shawl gets bigger the next two colours would be used on a decent number of rows, but not as many as the lightest colour, and then with the length of the rows being so long by the time I start using the darkest shade I would need that extra amount to get any decent number of rows worked in it before it runs out.

I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until all of the green Merino gradient was used up.  I used 89g of black Jacob with the 81g of Merino.  The fibre content is 52.5% Jacob, 47.5% Merino.



I'm not totally in love with this one.  I had an idea and I had to try it out.  It could have gone better, I could have done it better.  I think the palest of the green looks almost white and I think that is what is throwing me off this a little bit. It is what it is.  I've called this one "Mint Chocolate".

This has turned out to be Double-Knit weight and there is 166g/396m

Friday 8 December 2023

Spinning "Chocolate Box"

This is the second of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  For this one I topped up what was left on the bobbin of the black Jacob and then I spun up the 53g of "Selection Box" 50% Shetland, 25% Bamboo, 12.5% Flax, 12.5% Sari Silk from Day 20 of the Advent Calendar 2022.


I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until all of the Selection Box was used up.  I used 52g of black Jacob with the 53g of Selection Box.  The fibre content is 50% Jacob, 25% Shetland, 12.5% Bamboo, 6.25% Flax, 6.25% Sari Silk.


I love the way that the colours of Selection Box are constantly changing like the flickering flames of a fire and plying that with the black Jacob really shows that up.  I've played around with the original name and the fact that it is now plied with the black/brown Jacob and called it "Chocolate Box".

This has turned out to be Double-Knit weight and there is 97g/214m