Acquisitions/Collection Curation

I have some acquisitions you’ve not seen yet!

A friend at the Guild recommended a tablet/card weaving pattern and the Scheepjes Catona yarn, which comes in different sized balls. I ordered 4 x 50g balls in the colours Jet Black,  Hot Red, Sky Blue and Mercury. It’s mercerised cotton.

Wool Warehouse were selling Anchor tapestry yarn packs. I bought the Spring pack.

Technically speaking tapestry should be woven but this is “for embroidery, punch needle and more”. My plan is to use on my tapestry loom and make a garden scene.

Fibre Prep

On Monday I posted about combing the Castlemilk Moorit (and an interesting lesson I’ve learned about my handspun.)

Since then I also combed the Lincoln Longwool and my goodness the staple length on those were crazy! It was a workout and definitely the trickiest I’ve done so far due to its enormous (around 30cm/12”!) length plus it having some lanolin in.

Knitting

Jumpers/cardigans

The Quick Sand cardigan was cast on 26th June and I bound the body off on Tuesday, then made a start on the sleeves. Last time I used this linen blend yarn (in 2019) I had to protect my fingers from it whilst knitting, but it was fine this time. I wonder if my fingers have just toughened up during the last 5 years.

I have the arms to finish, the border round the edge and obviously it needs blocking.

Spinning

Tour de fleece continues and if you are interested I did a post earlier in the week about a valuable lesson I learned about measuring yarn. This week I spun Castlemilk Moorit, Devon, Exmoor Horn, Lincoln Longwool and Romney.  You’ll probably know from this photo my favourite of this batch is Romney…squishy.

My grey North Ronaldsay had been dyed and felted into some lampshades, but I unwound ~25g of some brown I spun in 2019 and will include that in my study.

That’s it now! The spinning part of my breed study is finished! 🥳 🎉 🙌 Next week I’ll be posting a 3rd instalment about the last breeds I’ve spun and then will do a wrap up post showing them all at a later date.

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Other News

Our autumnal weather continues so it’s jumpers and heating coming on but I’m getting used to it now. We Brits love to moan about the weather whatever it’s doing.

On Saturday I was at a woodland wedding, outdoor day and evening although an open sided barn.  It was a lovely day, but my goodness it was cold.  We could see our breath by 5pm and under my dress I had thermal longjohns and an alpaca cardigan and thick long wrap, wool socks and was still a bit cold. I assume adrenaline and alcohol were heating the bride and groom.  He was in a traditional casual Highland wear (kilt, loose shirt with leather lacing and a fly plaid (the long piece of tartan hanging down from his shoulder)) and she looked absolutely beautiful.  

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This is a Year of Projects post. Officially the Group is in its 14th year, but this is my 7th year participating. If you would like to find more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry, as you’d be very welcome to join us.

Year 14 list.