cor!

Oooh – my lovely spinning prize arrived from the States from moonlightbaker!

They are much, much prettier in person, and I love how each one was individually wrapped! I’ve no idea what I want them to be yet – either I’ll spin them very fine for something lacy (but I have a lot of laceweight already), or maybe ply with some very similar bamboo/merino I have to make them both go a bit further.

And I finally made it to Knit Night and picked up my handspun, £5 prize and rosette from Annie! She also treated me to a cuuute little fluffy alpaca toy and her old coffee maker which she was throwing out ’cause of her fab new kitchen. Thanks again Annie, it felt like my birthday!

I’ve called him Makka Pakka after my favourite In The Night Garden character (what? you don’t have one?).

tour de fleece ‘09 – my first batts

The last couple of evenings I’ve been spinning yarn from my very own handmade batts, made on Peri and Annie’s drumcarders (don’t yet have my own, despite wishing for one on a regular basis. Wishing alone doesn’t seem to do it though, who knew?). I made the paler duck egg blue ones first, then the greeny ones a month or so later, using leftovers from the first plus some darker greens. I haven’t got very good pics of the batts, as the colours are so hard to photograph without looking a bit washed out.

115g homemade batts: merino, alpaca, silk - 273m - 2ply - sport/dk weight

Duck egg - 90g homemade batts: merino, alpaca, silk - 165m - 2ply - sport/dk

These colours are just so lovely and watery and gently greeny, I love them, and I love the way they go together. So far they’re placing the rest of my Tour de Fleece in jeopardy by making me want to knit them!  I’ll definitely use them together in a project, am just not sure what. There’s a total of 438m – I wonder if that’s enough for another Swallowtail… or maybe I’ll be brave and design something of my own!

tour de fleece ‘09 – sari batts

Today’s entry is spun from lovely batts I got in a swap – they were dark red merino with purple silky bits and sari silk and sparkle – a bit of everything!

Funnily enough I really didn’t think they were ‘my sort of thing’ until I spun them up and plied with a third ply of matching merino.

And now I LOVE this yarn! The sparkle is subtle, too, but of course you can’t see it in the pics, typical! Trust me this stuff is gorrrgeous in real life!

I ended up with 135m of aran weight… searching for ideas for what to make with it!

I made some batts myself ages ago using Annie’s and Peri’s drumcarders. I’ve already spun one set up and am halfway through the next lot – hopefully they’ll come out similar-ish in weight as the colours coordinate nicely (sort of a sagey green, and a duck eggy colour) and it’d be nice to do a project using both. Pics when they’re done & dry!