Macro Lens

I am really excited about having a macro lens - it was delivered today and this is just a small selection of the photographs I have taken. I have always thought macro interesting and am determined to learn all the ins and outs of using this lens to best effect.

Majacraft Little Gem Spinning Wheel

I have a new spinning wheel - a Majacraft Little Gem and I am very pleased with it. The photographs show it complete with Mr Spinning J's Flyer which he made especially for the Little Gem - he finished it today - so just in time : )

New Flyer

Mr Spinning J has made me two new flyers for my Majacraft Spinning Wheel. The photograph shows the second one which is lighter than the first and I am hoping that I will be able to do lace weight yarn using this flyer - they both work amazingly well. He is now looking into making a jumbo flyer - no he is not up for grabs : )

More Fleece

This is by way of a 'catch up' blog. I have been busy with household and gardening chores and have neglected my blog, but I am here now and wanting to show of the lovely alpaca fleece Mr Spinning J bought me - he doesn't really ever get a mention but he is very supportive of my hobbies and comes along quite willingly when I find something spinning related to go to and the last time we went on such a trip he bought me this lovely alpaca fleece. It is an outstanding colour which I would describe as being a rich dark auburn and although it is not the easiest to spin the resulting yarn is lovely and soft.

I have also bought a Jacob fleece which was relatively clean without too much vm but I am having problems carding it as there are a lot of really short second cuts which is rather disappointing as otherwise it is a lovely fleece. Hopefully I have found the poorest cut to start with and things will improve as I card more.

Ness Gardens

This blog is a little out of sequence but I was looking through the photographs I took when I went to Ness Gardens on the Wirral a couple of weeks ago and thought some of the photos were worth recording here. I also found the following poem by Rudyard Kipling which I haven't read before but I think very appropriate to somewhere like Ness which looks so effortlessly beautiful.

The following is not the full version but just the verses I have selected:

THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,

Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,

With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;

But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,

You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all;

The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:

The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and

'prentice boys

Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;

For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,

The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a

rose,

And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;

But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,

For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Rudyard Kipling

Fluffy Fleece

I have washed about 300 gms of fleece and carded a small amount. It is lovely and fluffy and is spinning up well. I used Fairy washing up liquid for washing the first 100 grm just to see how clean it would come up - the photo opposite is wool from my first washing. The second 200 grm washing was with Power Scour and compared to Fairy Liquid I used much less and it was easier to rinse out, also the tips looked whiter but I did four washes with the Power Scour (three with Fairy Liquid) using more than the recommended amount for the fourth wash. I think in hindsight I may have used too much water for the amount of Power Scour used in the first three washes I went by the weight of wool being washed not the amount of water used and I do like to use plenty of water.

Fleece straight from the sheep

We had a lovely afternoon at Blaze Farm's, 'Wool Experience' at Wildboarclough. There were demonstrations of spinning and sheep shearing and this is one of the fleece from the shearing demonstration. One of the spinning ladies helped pick out the fleece for me which was great as I really wouldn't know a good fleece from a bad.

When I got home I spread the fleece out on cardboard on top of the bins. I pulled out the worst of the soiling around the edges of the fleece but I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't too bad at all. I have some soaking in cold water so that I can start washing tomorrow. I was encouraged to try spinning in the grease but I really feel more comfortable washing the fleece -but who knows - not long ago I was saying I wouldn't buy a fleece........

Goslings in May

Took this photograph yesterday - not a particularly good photograph but it makes me smile.....

Zwartbles - First Experience with Raw Fleece

After saying I didn't want to have anything to do with raw fleece I changed my mind - woman's prerogative - and bought 950 grms of Zwartbles of ebay and set about washing it. I chose Zwartbles as I thought if I am going to put a lot of effort into preparing a fleece I want something different to the usual tops I buy and I have never seen Zwartbles tops. In fact I had never heard of the sheep until I looked the breed up on the net and found that they are a Dutch breed which have fell out of favour in Holland but their numbers are increasing in the UK.

Anyhow, I am really pleased with how the fleece is turning out although it is hard work. I have been washing (scouring) a smallish amount at a time and am about three quarters of the way through now. I have thrown very little away but I have spent quite a lot of time taking out bits of straw etc. and there is also a lot of sand in the fleece which happily has come out in the washing. The fleece is a really lovely colour and is very crimpy. I just hope it cards well and spins up nicely.

First photo - before

Last photo - after

Spinning, Blending

My first efforts using a drum carder. I started by blending dark and light purple merino tops and then added silk - not sure of the proportions as my scales are in need of a battery - not just the ordinary ones that everyone has available but the little round ones that I have never thought of buying in (sigh). However, I digress, the photograph really doesn't do the batt justice it is so soft and fluffy. I have tried spinning it and it spins up beautifully - really pleased.

Dyeing with Nettles

Picked fresh young nettle tops when out with the dogs the other day. Boiled the nettles for an hour, allowed to cool for another hour, strained and added alum mordanted handspun Shetland and simmered for an hour. The wool took the dye very well and I am really pleased with the colour - natural dyes are so fresh and clear looking. I'm thinking dandelions next : )

Amounts: 100 grms of wool and a Tesco plastic bag about three-quarters full of nettles. I didn't chop the nettles just popped then into boiling water as picked.

Ashford Jumbo Sliding Hook Flyer

I have bought a Jumbo Flyer with the Sliding hooks and I am pleased to say that with the good advice from 'The Alpaca Spinner' I can use it on both my Ashford Traveller and the Traditional.
At the moment it is on the Traditional but I have a new jumbo bearing for the Traveller and a reducer bush which means I can us the Traveller with either the regular or jumbo flyer and for any thickness of yarn as I also have an orifice reducer. The same versatility also applies to the Traditional. I think this is really 'cool'.

I should add that I like the Sliding Hook Flyer but I am not sure that it is that much better than the regular hooks. I chose to buy it because it makes the Traditional more flexible - the flyers that came with it only had two ratios whereas the new flyer has four ranging from 4.1 to 12.5:1.

Weaving - Scarf

Well I have finished my first weaving project on the Leena Loom. I am really pleased with it although there is some unevenness in places. I found weaving on a four shaft loom is faster and more comfortable (this does not apply to warping) than weaving on a rigid heddle but I am sure I will still get lots of use out of the rigid heddle.

My daughter in law bought me the wool I used for the weft for Mothers' Day and I think it has made a really interesting scarf. I used 4 ply bamboo for the warp.

I know the photograph is a bit odd with a scarf draped over a chair but the scarf is very long and I wanted to show it off : )

Ramie - Spinning and Dyeing Nettle

The photograph opposite is Ramie which spun up very well apart from flying all over me and the room I was spinning it in. Also on the downside it is rather stringy. I just hope it knits up to look reasonable as I want to knit a scarf for my daughter as she is allergic to wool.

I did a search for Ramie on the Internet and found it belongs to the nettle family and grows in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world and interestingly is grown for both fibre and fodder.

I dyed the Ramie with Procion MX dyes which is different than dyeing wool in two respects firstly the yarn was soaked before dyeing with soda ash and salt added to the water and secondly after adding the dye in the same way as I would do for wool I just covered it with kitchen foil and left it until the next day before rinsing. I think perhaps the rinsing could be a third difference as it took ages to rinse whereas I have found that when dyeing wool there is no or hardly any bleeding. As you can see the colours are really vibrant.

Spinning and Dyeing

I thought it was time I caught up with showing some of my spinning and dyeing exploits..... On a previous blog I put up a photo of some dyeing I had done which I wasn't very pleased with - but it has spun up OK nowhere near as garish as I thought it would be although it is somewhat brighter than it looks in the photograph.

I have started to knit some fingerless gloves- yes I know - wrong time of year, but I am sure they will come in very useful come autumn. The wool is BFL which I dyed with Landscape Dyes and then spun on the Traditional. I am finding the single treadle hard to get used to though and it turned out a bit thick and thin but nonetheless it is knitting up quite well.

Spring

It has been glorious spring weather this past week. I took these photographs a couple of days ago. The apple blossom and the bluebells were taken when we were out for a drive and the clematis is in our garden.

The bluebells were growing along a country road side - the apple tree in a hedge near by.

The clematis has been outstanding this year and along with the blossom on our old apple tree and the flowering cherry the garden has looked lovely.

New Addition - Ashford Traditional Spinning Wheel

Since my last blog I have aquired a second spinning wheel. It is on long term loan and is an older Ashford traditional. I have had it for about three weeks now and it has polished up beautifully.

Introducing 'Leena'

Well I am now the proud owner of a four shaft table weaving loom. It is a Toika 'Leena' and although it is an older model it's in pretty good shape and has pride of place in the 'new' shed. It arrived on a Saturday nearly three weeks ago and although it was in pieces it quickly went together.. but...the heddles were in a real
mess and not having any experience
with string heddles it took me ages to get them sorted.

Likewise it took me ages to sort out the warping process. The book 'Learning to Weave' by Deborah Chandler was invaluable.









After a lot of trials and errors I finally got to the stage where I could start weaving....



I used acrylic 4 ply left over from my
machine knitting days and set about trying out my new 'toy'. I followed some of the advice in the Deborah Chandler book and followed some of the twill patterns from the 'Ashford Book of Weaving' and also 'did my own thing'. Hopefully next time I blog about my new loom I will have actually made something..... It's OK doing a practice piece but much more interesting actually making something....

Natural Dyeing with Apple Twigs

I couple of days ago I dyed handspun BFL with apple twigs. Before Christmas my daughter collected and cut up half a bucket of apple twigs for me. When I came to look at them I was a bit concerned as they were showing some signs of mould but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and left them to soak for three days. I then drained the water off and using about half of the twigs (more would have been to much for my pot) put them into my dye pot and covered with water and boiled for about at hour and a half. I used a sieve to remove the twigs and debris and topped up with enough water for 100 gr of wool in two separate hanks. 50 gm had been mordanted in alum and the other 50gm had not been mordanted. I brought to the boil and simmered for about one hour. I then removed both hanks and added half a teaspoon of iron (mixed with warm water) to the dye bath and returned the unmordanted hank to the pot for about 5 mins.









As you can see the contrast is very clear between the alum and the iron. It is the first time I have used iron so I was very interested to see the difference.

Goosey Goosey Gander

We made an unscheduled stop at Crewe Park last week only to find that they are renovating it and most of it was cordoned off but I did manage to take a few photos - I particularly like this one.

Dyeing

I have done my first dyeing in 'the shed' I can't claim a great success - it didn't turn out how I had anticipated - much more colourful. I used Landscape Dyes (Christmas present) with an Ashford yellow. However, although it is still quite cold dyeing in the shed was successful so it is great to be able to get out there.

On the natural dye front I have some apple twigs soaking so I am looking forward to seeing what they produce.

Spinning

I have been spinning Shetland which
I bought from Andy's open day. It is really nice to spin and I have achieved quite a fine two-ply 15 wpi - my problem now seems to be achieving a double knit. I want to use the spun Shetland for natural dyeing.








Previous to the Shetland I spun some BFL which I had dyed some months ago with Ashford Dyes - this also spun up quite fine.








I have also been a bit more adventurous and spun a Baby Camel/Silk mix from World of Wool. It proved more difficult to spin than regular wool resulting in more unevenness but it is lovely and soft and has quite a sheen - it is 13 wpi. The downside is the 'camel fluff' seems to get everywhere and sticks to carpets and clothes.

New Shed in the Snow

We have replaced the greenhouse with a shed which is to be mainly for me....I can do my dyeing in there and store some of my wool. It was delivered on Monday 2nd Feb. which turned out to be the start of a really wintery week with snow and ice - although we didn't have nearly as much snow as many parts of Britain.







Fortunately the weather wasn't too bad when the shed arrived and it was built in double quick time....about quarter of an hour and that includes the men having a cup of coffee!

(photos taken with G9)

I also took some photographs of holly
in the garden - it is amazing that it
still has berries as the birds have
devoured all the berries off the
pyracantha.

Still Catching Up

We went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago to try out the new camera..... I was really pleased with a number of the photos but the one that pleased me the most was of a robin - he almost seemed to pose for me...and he wasn't captive.

New Camera

I have a new camera and hoping to take lots of photographs....the blackbird was in our back garden.

New Year

NEW YEAR'S DAY - We took the dogs for a walk early morning and were amazed at the beautiful frost, we dashed back home and set out again with our cameras.... 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland'.