Not quite Making Monday

So it's a day late, but I got side tracked yesterday and before I knew it, it was too dark to take photos!
Following on from the successful fleece washing (it's now all dry and in pillow cases under my bed), here's an idea for non-successful fleece washing.

Back when I first started becoming interested in preparing my own fleece to spin, I lived in a small flat in Sheffield. Not very handy for fleece washing or drying. My fleece washing was limited to visits home, I'd bought 2 fleeces from Woolfest that year, one I managed to wash and dry during the summer holidays, the other I had to leave for Mum to finish off. When I next made it home in October it turned out Mum had got a bit enthusiastic with the washing and somehow managed to felt the fleece.
Rather than just chuck it on the compost heap we decided to salvage some of it, our floors are solid slate slabs that rest directly on the earth floor (our reward for a 200 year old house is permanently cold feet!). It's particularly bad in the kitchen as the cold seaps through whatever you have on your feet.

Which is where this comes in!




A peg loom woven rug from rescued felted fleece. As time goes on it will compact and squash down, but will be rather welcome to insulate our toes from the floor when we're standing cooking or washing up. When it gets too grubby it can go in the washing machine (and maybe felt a bit more!)

Fleeeece!

Despite spending all day every day working with fibre, I somehow can't seem to get enough of the stuff. Today was the first dry day we've had in this part of Wales for a while, and the next dry day had been ear marked as fleece washing day.
I've had a Speckle Face fleece from a local farmer in soak for longer than I care to remember. I cold water soak all my fleeces for at least a week before I wash them. It really helps to get the worst of the dirt out, and softens up any particularly crusty bits.
As well as the Speckle Face ( which I can get more of so was willing to be a bit rough with), I'd also got 250g of black gold! Some Bond that has been imported from Australia, while it wasn't particularly expensive, getting hold of it involved a 3 month wait for the fleeces to take the boat from Down Under.

The Speckle Face was hauled out of soak (I have a huge mesh bag that makes soaking fleeces much easier), and gently (you can still felt with cold water if you agitate enough) rinsed with the hosepipe, just enough for the dirty water to rinse out. We have some decking in front of the caravan which lets the dirty water drain off.



After that I pull off sections, and they go in to soak with a good glug of washing up liquid.



It stews for a while, and then I rinse in more hot water (about the same temperature as the original soapy water). This fleece wasn't particularly grubby (though does have lots of vegetation stuck in it) so I left it at that, by keeping the amount of fleece in the water low, I got away without doing further washes and rinses.

While the Speckle face got the rough treatment, the Bond was well and truly cosseted. I pulled off small chunks, and put about 5 or 6 in the sink in as hot water as I could get (a blend of hot water from the kettle, and very hot water from the tap) with a very big glug of washing up liquid, after about 5 minutes I pulled out the chunks, and rinsed them in a bowl of water of the same temperature. Again, this fleece wasn't very dirty, the sheep are kept coated which keeps the worst of the dirt off, so it was just to get some of the grease out.


The end result of a whole day of washing, beautiful soft piles of fluff that I plan on spinning just as they are



And this is why I buy commercially prepped stuff for the shop.... a whole day, to wash just over a kilo of fleece.

Clyd

The observant of you will notice that there is a new link in the side bar to the right. My new pattern for p/hop has actually been around for a while now, but life has been so busy I've not had the energy to go fiddling around with html coding to make it magically appear over there.
p/hop (for the uninitiated) stands for pennies per hour of pleasure, and is a fibre based fundraiser for MSF also known as Doctors without Borders. I've been involved in the project since the start, and have donated a number of patterns to them. The basic principle is that you donate based on the pleasure a pattern gives you, and the amount you can afford. MSF is one of the few charities that I trust to spend my money wisely, and the p/hop principle is fantastic (it won an award at the Just Giving awards a few months ago).

A little about the new pattern- Clyd (Definition: Clyd: 1. warm n.m. sheltered n.m. snug n.m. cosy n.m. pronounced kleed. Welsh) is a simple garter stitch headband. I think it would make a great first project for a beginner knitter (certainly better the endless garter stitch scarf). There's no purling, a few simple increases and decreases, and a yarn over button hole.
It also show cases hand spun yarn fantastically, you only need 60m of Aran weight for the whole pattern.

I wear a headband of a similar design lots when the weather gets colder, I have lots of hair, so hats never fit very well, and the shaping on the headband minimises bulk at the back of your head so the headband doesn't end up falling over your eyes every time you look up.

I think they'd make fab Christmas presents (I have a couple of the test knits saved up for just this), if you're a quick knitter you could make one in under 2 hours knitting time (my personal best is just over an hour). I hope you like it, and I hope it gives you pleasure!

Making Monday 7- Laceweight

This is the finest I have ever spun..
Proper, proper laceweight, not very thin fingering weight, but proper laceweight. It's been a rocky road making it this far, I somehow managed to ply the wrong way without realising (I have no idea how I didn't notice...), which meant I needed to reply the entire skein.
I still haven't worked out how many metres I had to ply twice, but the original braid of fibre was 100g, so I feel confident in saying there's a lot of yarn there!

The fibre was superwash merino I dyed at the start of my forays in to natural dyeing.


I'm already thinking about knitting Rock Island with it..

You can find all the other Making Monday posts at The Yarn Yard.

Wool Week

This week is National Wool Week.... though you may be forgiven for not knowing about it, the publicity so far has been somewhat limited.
As you might have gathered, I love Wool, I love it in all it's forms from raw fleece to finished item, I love scratchy Herdwick to superfine Bond.
I like it dyed, and I love it in its huge variety of natural shades. I value it for it's warmth, breathability,and waterproofness. Wool really is a fantastic resource, and thankful we're starting to realise it, and use more of it. Raw fleece prices have increased this year, which is great, but it's actually starting to make fleece profitable for the farmers local to me. For the first time in many years the farmers round here will get a wool cheque that pays for the cost of the shearing, and that's got to be a good thing!

Hidden Treasures

One of the bad good things about selling on Etsy is the inspiration you get, and the amount of fantastic stuff, by ver clever people that's out there is unbelievable.
Every now and again I put together treasuries (collections of items based on a theme), sometimes these finds lead me further to to a persons shop, and the inspiration I find is unbelievable.



This bunting is just fantastic, and such a clever idea. If I had a wedding or special occasion I was looking for decorations for I'd buy it in an instant.

I've been busy with local fairs and markets for the last couple of days, and the inspiration there has been equally fantastic. If you have a craft fair local to you, it's well worth a visit.
(If you are ever in my bit of Wales, I'm at Builth Wells on the first Saturday of every month, come and say hello)

Making Monday

Autumn is on it's way... it never really felt like we had summer, but round here leaves are turning colours, and the fruit trees are starting to ripen.
This is our Damson tree, we didn't plant it, by the looks of it this tree has been here for many years. This year it has so many fruits they're grouped on the tree like grapes!
All being well this will be it's last year of fruiting, the barn you can see in the background is going to be converted in to living space, and a big wooden deck will fill the space where the tree is now.


It's sad, but thew views up the valley are as beautiful as the views down it, and it will block out the view. We can always plant another tree, and the next one will produce a fruit that's bigger and easier to pick, as we suspect this might be a wild damson, the fruit on it is small, and ripens very variably!
So what do you do with all these damsons? Well there's jam, and crumble, and wine....
Not quite made yet, we're collecting the ripe ones in the freezer until we're ready, but the intention is there!