YET MORE FIBRE FOR THE STASH (OH AND SOME YARN)

Yes I know I probably shouldn't have, but when you see lovely Blue Faced Leicester tops at £8 for 500 grammes you just have to don't you? This was from Laughing Hens.

I also found a Finnish stand called Piiku selling fibre mainly aimed at felters. They had batts of fibre, spun yarn, fine pencil roving and sheets of machine needle felt all in undyed and multiple dyed colourways.

I bought 2 metres of the needle felt which is at a stage I think of as pre-felt (ie you can finish it or pull it apart still).

I also bought a big cheese of undyed pencil roving (see pic above with bfl tops) - I've had a small amount in the past which I made a lovely sample from, but have never found the same stuff again to make an actual 'thing' from - so now that I have it would have been completely potty not to take the opportunity.

And yes - me a yarn maker bought yarn! It was however something I can't make - fair-isle style, self striping, cotton, sock yarn along with a lovely pattern for a little tank top. I shall save this for my next holiday break - I think it would make a lovely relaxed holiday project. It came from Web of Wool who seem to specialize in that sort of thing. I was also nearly tempted by a lovely bamboo/soy yarn which was only a little more expensive, but it was only self striping not self patterning so (with a little difficulty) I resisted!

GREEN & PINK PROJECT

Many apologies for having been away for a while - computer problems :-( now mostly sorted, although my photos are on one computer and I'm typing this on another - so please forgive any delays in adding photos to posts!

A couple of weeks ago I had an "uninspired by life" moment - I paced the house for a while contemplating various potentially exciting snacks and nibbles - I fiddled on the computer - which wasn't being very helpful - "cannot find server", "this page has expired" etc., and then I fell upon the idea of playing with some fibre - something different - a bit of fun - so I rummaged in the stash and found a heap of different coloured merino tops (see pics). I divided these into two piles - greens and bright pink in one and warm colours in the other.

I chose to do something with the first pile and weighed the Merino - 65g pink, 110g mixed greens. I then hummed and hahhed for a bit before deciding that I wanted a slightly chunkier yarn than I normally spin and that I wanted an overall greenness with splashes of pink. This led me to take pieces at random to pre-draft in pairs of colours. I took alternately two pieces of green merino then a piece of green and a piece of pink. I spun these into a singles yarn which I then Navajo plied - this was to keep the pink in it's separate "blobs" and also because Navajo plying produces a 3 ply yarn it's a little thicker.

I have produced three skeins and I have some of the pink merino tops left and one of the greens. I shall probably spin these up to one plain pink batch and a plain green one.

I am undecided as to what to do with it now - I'm very pleased with the yarn - it's quite girly - and some of my favourite colours - so perhaps something for myself? hmmmm - I'll think on it.


In the meantime what shall I do next? more colours? perhaps some cellulose fibre or maybe a bit of drop spindling............