Spin. spin, dye, spin

This weekend I have been busy spinning, plying and dyeing.

I plied the 100g of BFL that I had spun up a few weeks ago. It turn out a bit like Collinette yarn, lol. I then dyed it...........here it is being dyed.

I used Kemtex acid dyes and baked the yarn and dye in a roasting tin in the bottom oven of the AGA for about an hour (maybe a little more). The tin was covered with foil during baking. I then took it out, removed the foil and let the whole thing cool to room temperature before rinsing the yarn in warm water.
Here's the finished yarn.

Next I made this little 50g skein of BFL. I will probably dye this as well but I'm not sure what colours yet. It's a bit more evenly spun than the one above.

Then, as I was on a bit of a roll! I spun up the merino roving that my neighbour bought for me from when we went to the Spinning Wheal. It was very easy to spin. It kind of flowed into the twist, the fibres flowed very easily; it was a really good experiance in terms of learning to feel the flow of the fibre, very cool. Anyway, here it is............

After that I just had to spin up the BFL roving that I dyed the other week.

It went from this

To this......

Both the merino and the BFL need to be washed to set the twist but I'm pretty pleased with both of them. I think that maybe one or more would make a nice yoke for a sweater like the one here in Knitty Winter 2009

Lack of knitting so Hens instead !

Hi,
After the epic of the Snowflake Blanket I am rather stuck for what to do next. There are a few options I have been considering...and they are....

• A ripple blankie - I have lots of yarn for it in lots of pretty colours. I have the pattern printed out. I have the crochet hook.
• A 4 ply cardy/sweater. Top down set in sleeves from Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top. I have been swatching with some orange sock yarn I got from Lidl last year.
• An aran cardy/sweater that is not another Garter Yoke Cardigan but could be a la Knitting From the Top as well.

or

• Something completely different.................

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

By way of an interlude and instead of knitting I give you our hens, Miranda, Callie and Caroline, who have been enjoying the spring sunshine lately....

1. image223, 2. image215, 3. image216, 4. image224, 5. image201, 6. image204, 7. image211, 8. image181, 9. image188, 10. image192, 11. image72, 12. image71, 13. image64, 14. image75, 15. image44, 16. image43, 17. image50, 18. image180, 19. image19, 20. image208, 21. image183, 22. image63, 23. image209, 24. image87

More soon :-)

Finished the blankie - yay:-)

I have finished the Snowflake Blankie. There was a mammoth amount of sewing up to do; here's an action in progress shot......

......and here it is, the finished article in all it's glory!

Phew, all done:-)

Flickr Favorites

A few good things..................

1. My 1st hand dyed top, 2. Caroline, 3. My 1st hand spun, 4. Red onions

Fancy having a play with your flickr favorites? Pay Mitsy over at Artmind a visit to join in the fun :)