A Sweet Little Handspun Weekend

I was saving a special batt of fiber that I bought, for just the right time, and this weekend was it.

I needed a little self-love and TLC, so I dug it out.

I'd bought the batt on Etsy several years ago (but can't find the seller to attribute it to, sorry) and thought it so pretty that I was reticent to spin it up straight away.

And I'm so glad I waited because it was just such a lovely treat for me.

The batt looked like this ...

And here's the finished yarn ... swoon.

Feeling soooo much better.

Working With Colour

I *love* to work with colour.

It truly makes my heart and soul happy.

There's been a lot of research done on colour therapy, and it is a thing!

Colour makes us feel better.

It's different for everyone of course, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I believe that we all need colour in our lives.

It's the beginning of winter here, and it's cold and dark and wet. So, I'm showing you a selection of some of my finished creations, so you can see how much colour is a part of what I love to do ... and share with the world.

Some of my colourful handmade drop spindles (previously sold in my Etsy shop) ...

And here is how I play with colour on some of my hand-dyed yarns (all colourways that I previously sold in my Etsy shop) ...

And here's how I like to hand-spin, hand-knit and crochet colourful pieces that make my heart soar ...

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little ensemble of (yarn arts inspired) colour therapy today.

Unravel 2015

Having my pre-schooler in tow, it was going to be a challenge to visit the Unravel Knitting Festival for anything longer than a few hours, but visit it we did ... and we did it in style.

Unravel has become an annual treat for me, and I was very happy to introduce my son to it this year. He was very curious about the adventure I was taking him on in the car. I kept him entertained for the hour-long journey to the venue with a sing-along session to a Disney CD.

We were in good spirits when we arrived at Farnham Maltings at about 2:30pm on Saturday 21st February, where I was delighted to find a car parking space at the venue straight away.

Eager to see the goodies, I took my little one by the hand and led him around the quirky corridors of the Maltings to the sales halls of delights.

With it being later on in the day, I was relieved to see that the usual crowds I'd encountered at Unravel in previous years had dispersed.

The Natural Dye Studio's stall was as stunning as ever. The best way to advertise your range of colourful yarns is to see them in action of course!

After receiving a text message from Sarah of Crafts From The Cwtch that the Nudinits talk she had listened to was finished, I cut our tour of Unravel short to see my fellow crafting and blogging friends in the cafe area of the Maltings. I was delighted to see that Sarah was there, along with Marinke from A Creative Being Blog. It was so wonderful to see these two again, and after the initial hellos were said, they introduced me to another lovely lady called Alison (Cristaltips on Ravelry). My little one was bashful at first and then sat on my lap as I caught up on news with friends.

Realising that time was slipping away, I still needed to see the last half of the festival, so my son and I excused ourselves from the cafe area to go and look around some more. Leaving Sarah to her networking, Marinke decided to keep us company whilst we investigated more rooms.

The most tempting stall for me personally with regards to wanting to part with my hard-earned cash was the one run by Louise Player of Spin City. Hers is a feast for the eyes ... with all the kinds of fluff I love ... gorgeous hand-carded batts, sparkly and girly drop spindles, roving in all the colours of the rainbow, and more. As a spinner, I couldn't keep my eyes off of it.

Louise herself was busy trying to (and succeeding) in converting yet more yarn lovers to the joys of spinning on a drop spindle.

And here's one last full view of the stall, with Louise and her lovely Mum.

A vendor that I hadn't encountered before had me loitering around their stall for quite some time. The faux taxidermy knitting kits by Sincerely Louise were just so well designed and executed. From giant tiger floor rugs (like picture below), and trophy wall-mountable animal heads, to faux fox stole scarves, Louise's designs and kits were all really tactile, endearing as well as being quirky and fun.

Other stalls that took my breath away included Hilltop Cloud, John Arbon Textiles, and IST Crafts.

It seemed even bigger and better this year, which may have something to do with more stall holders, more Maltings rooms allocated to the event, and the fact that this was the first year that they'd run the event over three days instead of the usual two. Either way, it was great. With familiar and unfamiliar vendors, it was a feast for the eyes.

As usual, the Maltings was decorated with a variety of yarn-art to inspire crafty souls of every persuasion.

'Growth' by Barbara Touati-Evans

Towards the end, I discovered a very interesting installation at the event called 'Blue Jumper'. This was a participatory knitting experience conceived of by artist Sarah Filmer. Hanging up around the eaves of the Undercroft area of the venue was knitting in a large variety of different blue coloured yarns, in undulating and beautiful shapes, hanging down with unfinished sections attached to knitting needles ... inviting you to join in. Many women were sat at this communal knitting lounge adding their few lines to the sculptural work. It would have been rude not to have participated, so Marinke (Wink) and I sat down and got involved.

My little one is too young and lacking in the fine motor skills needed for the yarn crafts, but I'm hoping that some of the buoyant creativity seen at events like Unravel will rub off on him in some way.

5pm had been and gone, and it was sadly time to leave. I said farewell and safe travels to old friends and new, got in the car with a tired and happy little one, and home we went.

Thanks for a great afternoon, and see you next year Unravel!

Tour de Fleece 2013

This was the year I took the plunge and joined in with the Tour de Fleece, and I'm so glad I did because I loved every minute of it.

Through the hottest British summer since 2006, I still managed to spin every day that the Tour de France cycled ... even if I had to wait until the evening so it was cool enough to do so.

Here's my final tally ... all 845g of it!!

I managed these 11 skeins of completed yarn, all 2-ply, but in a variety of fibers and in a variety of weights.

I especially love this skein of BFL sock weight yarn in a 'Watermelon Tourmaline' colour scheme I had custom dyed by Danielle of A Stash Addict.

I also tried spinning alpaca for the first time, albeit in a blend of merino and silk, but it was my first alpaca experience nonetheless. I'm really pleased with the results of this uber-soft DK weight yarn.

I also tried spinning a singles yarn for the first time. I'm seriously over the moon about this one as it ended up better than I expected. After asking some TdF team mates for advice, I slightly fulled the yarn by alternating it in a hot versus cold bath, and then hung it to dry with a weight on the end. I will definitely be trying this out again soon, as it provides you with so much more yardage than a 2-ply.

I was disappointed about not being able to finish the rainbow merino fiber on my drop spindle, but it really was too hot to spin yarn during the day. Despite that, I did have all the good intentions, and took my spindle out on numerous day excursions ... only to give up actually spinning after the first 10 minutes, drenched in sweat and in fear of felting my fiber between my hands! Here's a photo of me feeling optimistic on route to the beach, spindle in hand.

I was also half way through some lace weight luxury 50% baby camel and 50% tussah silk yarn when the TdF ended.

Badly timed I know, but the end of the event just crept up on me so quickly.

Not yet sick of spinning, I carried on my daily spinning to get it finished.

As I didn't want to be a Rookie-No-Mates, Team AYLM was founded on Instagram and Ravelry. Thanks so much to all who joined in. I've had some lovely messages from team mates who wrote to say that they also thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

As a thank you to my team mates, I pledged a prize drawn at random of a custom made drop spindle.

And I'm so pleased to announce that the lovely Jenni (IG username @baamekniits) was the winning member.

So it's over for 2013, and now I've done my first I can say that I will be there with bells on next year and probably every year after that.

It's such a wonderful opportunity to be inspired by others, develop your own skills, grow as a fiber artist, make new like-minded friends and enhance that wonderfully OOAK handspun yarn stash.

See you all there next year :)

Making Self-Striping Yarn

I thought I'd share the fun and show you how I made some self-striping yarn recently.

For this project you will need some undyed yarn (any weight you like). I bought 100g of Zitron Trekking Undyed 4-ply Sock Yarn, which is 75% wool and 25% nylon ... perfect for socks as it has the nylon for extra strength and is machine washable at 40 degrees.

I put two kitchen chairs as far apart as I could, across the length of my kitchen and hallway. Any long length will work. You then proceed to wind your undyed skein around the backs of the chairs so creating a long loop of yarn.

Once all of the skein has been wrapped around the chair backs, you will need to secure it by tying as shown below in at least four places, spaced out evenly around the entire length of yarn. This is an important step as it will help to prevent your yarn from tangling up into a huge knot.

I use white acrylic yarn to tie off the sections so that I can clearly and easily see these ties after the dyeing process is finished. This is because acrylic yarn doesn't take the dye like natural wool yarn, and it will stay pale ... invaluable in preventing you accidently cutting the wrong threads later on!

Place your dry yarn in a luke-warm water bath for at least half an hour whilst you prepare your dyes ...

Take four or more empty and clean jam jars. Put 300ml of hot water in each and add one to two packets of Kool Aid dye to each. Choose a different colour for each of the jam jars.

Stand the jam jars in a large saucepan and carefully add enough water to the saucepan (in bain marie style) so that the water comes to about a third of the way up the jars.

As you can see in the photo below, I've used a range of different reds for my self-striping yarn.

So begin by turning the hob on underneath the saucepan, on a low to medium heat at first.

Then, after gently squeezing all of the excess water out of your yarn, you can start to add it to the jars. I added a length to the first of the jars until no more would fit, and then I began to fill the next jar with yarn and so on until all the yarn had been covered in dye.

To achieve this, I ended up needing four jars full ...

Where the yarn stretches between the jars, make sure you dunk the undyed yarn under the dye solutions to ensure that you don't leave gaps of white between the different containers.

I used my fingers for this and later realised that it would have been much better to wear some rubber gloves!

Monitor the heat setting on your hob so that you bring the water in the saucepan up to a fast simmer.

And as if by magic you will see the water in the jam jars turn clear (and sometimes a little milky).

Try not to prod and poke the yarn too much.

I left my yarn on the heat for between 20 mins to half an hour, double checked that all the dye had been taken up by the yarn and then turned the hob off.

The temptation here is to want to see it straight away, but the key is to leave it cool without touching it.

The rule is to leave natural wool until it's completely cool before rinsing, and superwash wool until the water is cool enough to touch.

Try to use water that is a similar temperature to the water you've just taken the yarn from to do your rinse, so that you don't shock the fibers and felt them. Add a little drop of detergent and let soak for a little while. Try not to agitate the yarn, but use a gentle action.

Squeeze (don't wring) the water away from the yarn. Roll it up in a dry towel, stand on it, using your body weight to press out any extra water.

Then hand your new yarn somewhere warm, but away from direct sunshine, to dry fully.

Once dry, you need to place your yarn back over the chair backs at as far away it takes to achieve taughtness in the yarn lengths. By eye, untwist the loop of yarn so that the strands are as parallel as you can get. Then carefully cut away the ties you made with acrylic yarn, which should still be a white colour and easy to see.

Then by hand, wind the yarn into a ball, untangling where necessary as you go.

Once you have a hand-wound ball, you can use a yarn winder to make a centre-pull ball, or a yarn swift (or niddy noddy) to make a skein.

And here's my finished self-striping yarn, re-skeined and pictured next to the inspiration for the colourway ...

I've called this my Ephipany yarn. It is named after the Epiphany Chapel in the Winchester Cathedral where this stained glass window is located. It was designed by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement in 1910 ... my favourite era in British art.