Variation on a theme

Hi all!

I've been quite busy over the last week. Not only bunny-chasing around the house, but as usual I have been spinning. Last weekend, I was part of a spinning demonstration at the National herd dog championships in Lier, Norway. Friday was just exhausting, as we had mostly pre-school kids coming in to watch us. They were just too small to understand what was going on, and were mostly just interested in sticking their fingers into the wheel... sigh. I almost made a little boy cry, when I told him he couldn't try the wheel. My spinning wheel was taller than him, and he was wearing rubber boots and it was just not going to happen.... Can't please them all, heh?

Saturday was better, lots of nice people coming in and we all had a great time. Wool was provided for us to spin, but the quality was horrible. I was a bit frustrated by this, as the whole point of us being there was part of an ongoing project to promote Norwegian wool. The fibre was supplied by one of the leading wool mills in Norway, but I think it's bad press to give us such crummy goods. Oh well.
At least we spun something, but I would much prefer to have brought my own fibre to spin.

As I was stuck at my wheel both days, I didn't get to have a look around. But there were herding competitions with live sheep, lots of sheep breeds on display, and all kinds of sheep related stuff.

On another note I have been knitting a bit. I found a great FREE pattern on Ravelry, and it was so easy and quick, that I made three pairs!

(It is very hard to photograph ones own hands!)

The main pattern is bamboo stitch, basically just ribbing (2k,2p) and on every fourth round you make a yarn over before the 2 knit stitches, and slip it over the knit stitches as you go. Easy peasy!

They are finished with a nice ruffled edge, making them a bit feminine. If the recipient is male, just skip the ruffles, and they are just straigth tubes. 

For my first two pairs I used self spun yarns, in rather funky colours. This easy pattern is great for multicolours, as the pattern itself don't compete with the yarn too much.

Self dyed and self spun yarn, 100% white Norwegian lambs wool.
2ply yarn.

Self dyed and self spun 50% Norwegian white and 50% Norwegian
fur sheep wool. 2 ply yarn.

This last pair is knit with some left over commercial yarn, an Alpaca and Peruvian wool blend. The pattern don't require a whole lot of yarn, I knit these on 3.5mm needles, and one pair weighs just 35 grams.

Have you been knitting anything lately?

Moving out of the comfort zone

A few weeks ago, I attended a spinning extravaganza in Lillehammer, Norway, at Scandic Victoria hotel. It was hosted by Spinnvilt, the leading store in Norway for everything spinning related. It was a three day event (I sadly had to pass on the first day, though), and it was just awesome!

I rarely go to events, as I sometimes have a hard time with crowds. But I'd heard so many good things about this one that I just had to go. Besides, the spinning community is very friendly and including, so having a bad time is not very likely. We were about 50 participants there. We had a big conference hall to park our spinning wheels in, and we spun and had fun from 0900 in the morning both days and until about midnight for the toughest of us :) There was an all you could drink coffee bar, and fruits and pastry served on buffet and a lunch meal both days included. We also got a goodiebag with several samples of different luxury fibres and other fun stuff!

Here's  about 1/3 of us, having a blast!
Lots of yarn was made in this room :)

There were friendly competitions too, one team event where we were to name ten different fibre samples just by look and touch. I learnt lots! And also one speed-spinning contest, where the object was to spin the longest thread out of 5 grams of superfine merino, in 20 minutes. It was really intense, and the only time the room was actually quiet :D There were great prizes, and everybody had a really good time.

Maria, closest to the lens here, won a loom in the main prize draw.
I spoke to her in the ladies rest room just after, and she was rather ecstatic!
I would be too.

We also had several great demos from two super talented ladies, one was Kate Sherratt from Ashford, NZ, and also Maria Shtrik, from Russia (her website is in Russian, but one can always look at pictures, or follow her on Instagram). It was so inspiring to see the endless possibilities you have with wool, and different tools like carders, blending boards and hand spindles. I am so sad I didn't take pictures, but I had way too much fun. The two photos above, is borrowed from Tóve, our gracious host.

I am a notorious thin-spinner, and all my yarns tend to be really fine. I was challenged to spin out of my comfort zone, and go bulky. For anyone familiar to spinning, this is a well know phenomenon. Ones hands seem to make what they like to work with, so doing the opposite is hard. I love fine knits on small needles, and I am also a perfectionist so I was having a hard time to just let go. I have thought about this a lot, and sometimes, being a perfectionist kills creativity and stop you from evolving different skills. So I felt this was an important task!

At the spinning event we also had a so called fibre-table. It is basically a big table filled with fibre that has been donated by all the participants, and the huge pile is free for everyone to play with. This means you get the chance to spin fibre unfamiliar to you, or just have a go at lots of colour and texture. On the table there were two drumcarders mounted, so everyone could try their hand at using these tools as well. Blending batts of colourful wools and even glitter :) Genious!

At first, I was a bit shy about it. But with some encouragement, I made some batts for my bulky yarn. Here is the result.

The photos don't do it justice at all. I am very pleased with it! Spinning thick was very difficult, but once I got used to it, it was fun, and I was soon back at the table for another batt.

I used a slightly different technique here, plying one thick thread with one very thin one. The result is a faux bouclè. I really want to experiment more with this, but my grandma's spinning wheel is not suited for thick yarns, as the orifice is small, and also the bobbins. Guess this means I am saving up for another wheel ;)

I was so inspired when I got back home, and I had a go on my own carder. I used a roving I dyed myself, just pulling it up into smaller chunks, feeding it through the machine once, while sprinkling some firestar (glittery bling) into the mix.

Start with one roving....

....feed into carder...

....remove batt.

Lovely carded batts, ready to spin!

It's so much fun to see how the colour blend and mute, and the effect it creates when spun. I spun one medium thick thread, and again plied it with a thin one. This is as much as my spinning wheel will take :)

For me, this was the highlight of my spinning year (apart from getting my wheel of course!). I met so many lovely, fun and inspiring people, and most importantly, I evolved. I feel like I have taken a few more steps on some journey. Who knows where all this wool is taking me :)

Some foraging, and the making of a slouchy hat

Autumn has come to my part of the woods. The first storms of the season are hitting our coasts, and people cuddle up in sofas and comfy chairs after their day is done. The days are drawing shorter and the evenings are darker. I love the long bright days of summer, but somehow I greet the fall with joy.

I've been to the forest to stock up on berries for the winter, it just feels good to prepare and also harvest the bounty. But now the freezer is packed, so forest wandering is purely for leisure.

These are 6 kiloes of  lingonberries.
 Lovely as jam accompaning savoury foods.

We have not yet had any frosty nights, but the mornings are getting quite nippy, so why not stock up on hats? They are quick to knit, and Ravelry are brimming with lovely patterns.

For my pattern, I chose the Fruju hat, which is free on Ravelry. It's a simple slouchy hat in feather and fan stitch pattern, that creates interest and life to a simple shape.

The yarn I used, is spun from my first self dyed wool roving. Wool roving is carded wool that is arranged in a long continous sliver. This format is great for making multicoloured effects on the spinning fibre, as you can lay it out and paint the dye directly onto the fibre "sausage". It is much fun, and of course I had to learn how to do it!

The wonder machine in question, the Ashford drum carder.
Image borrowed from the Ashford website

I was really really lucky this summer, because I stumbled upon a used drum carder for sale, and that NEVER happens! Spinners usually hold on the their carders like treasure, and now owning one myself I can see why. They are awesome, and provides so much possibility!

The process is simple, you card your wool onto the drumcarder, and when it is fully loaded (mine takes 50grams) you pull off the fibre through a tiny hole to form a long strip/sausage of wool. See a short demo video here. The wool can now be either spun, or dyed if you wish.

I used a washer to pull my fibre through.
Worked like a charm!

I love colour so I tried to dye the roving into a gradient, with a darker purple that would fade down the roving. As with so many trials, there was error, and it didn't come out as planned. There was more undyed wool than I wanted, but when I spun it, it turned out kind of gorgeous :)

And when I knit it, I liked it even more :) The pattern was great for selfstriping yarn, and it is so much fun to see ones own yarn turned into something useful.

I went up a needle size from what is suggested in the pattern, because it fit the thickness of my yarn better. I ended up with a loose fit, but it's ok. I love my Fruju hat :)

It's a kind of magic!

Earlier this year, when I first got into spinning wool (and fell down a SERIOUS rabbit hole of creative possibilities), I learnt a bit about dyeing fibres with plants, fungi and lichens.
As we all know, nature is the source of all that is wonderful and colourful, and seeing examples of what colours can be achieved from natural ingredients, made me want to have a go.

This is not my work, but lovely examples of plant dyed yarn.
Photo gracefully borrowed from photographer Ingvild Hasle.

As it was late in winter at the time (February), the most likely source of plant material would be lichens growing on trees and rocks. Besides being available all year, lichens (along with tree bark) also have the power to dye wool without mordanting. This is a preparatory process done to the wool , to make plant dyes more wash- and light fast, and is usually done with different metal sulphates (the most common of which is alum). Different mordants can also bring out different colour tones from the same plant, so they are very useful to produce a wider array of shades. Bear in mind, they are toxic and bad for the environment.

I am always happy to skip steps to get to the fun part, so lichens it was!
I had heard somewhat of an old wives tale of a special kind of lichen that would give a striking blue shade, a colour rare in the plant dye universe. (None of the more experienced dyers I talked to about this, had ever heard of it, and probably thought I was making it up. And to be honest, I thought maybe I was being fooled...)
The only hitch to prove my point, was that the lichen would need to be fermented in ammonia for a minimum of 16 weeks, the jar needed to be turned every day blah blah. A very lengthy process!
But as it so happened, I knew of a tree that was covered in the stuff, (or Xanthoria parietina as it is scientifically named) a bright orangy yellow crust (to my Norwegian readers, it's messinglav).

Source

I picked some lichen (70grams to be specific) off the tree (do this step in wet weather, as it softens it), and prepared a solution of 3:1 water and household ammonia. Then I stuffed a big mason jar with the lichen and topped it up with the liquid.
In just a few minutes, it turned a murky dark reddish colour, much like red wine :)
So the experiment was live, and running. The first few weeks I was very diligent with turning the jar, but after a while it just sat there in the back of my kitchen cupboard.

Come dyeing day some six months later, I didn't have much information to work with in terms of instructions. But the saying was that to produce the blue colour, the wool had to be dyed and then exposed to full sun,while being kept wet (sounds like a recipe for making those bad gremlins).

Firstly, I prepared the dye bath by pouring the contents of the jar (+1pint of water) into a cooking pot and brought it to a boil. Then I left it to simmer for about an hour (DO THIS OUTSIDE!!).  I then strained it through a cloth, and threw away the lichen bits. I now had about 1 litre of very dark, smelly soup. I took half of it and diluted it with water (1:3). This because ammonia is though on fibres and can damage it if it's too strong.

Pretty hefty colour! Wee!

The wool I used was three small skeins of white handspun yarn, about 80 grams (this was just a test after all). The yarn needs to be soaked in water for at least 24 hours, and then added to the cooled down dye bath (the two should have the same temp). Bring it slowly up to no more than 90 degrees celsius, and keep it there for an hour. Do not stir or agitate.

It is very important to watch the temperature.
I used a cooking thermometer.

And now for the magic! I took one of the skeins up from the pot after 45 minutes, and it was a bright pink. Ok, at least there was colour. The other two was left in the bath to cool. The sun was out, and I placed the skein in front of a mirror so the sun would be reflected upon it. I had a spray bottle with water handy, and made sure it didn't dry. It instantly started to turn, from pink into purple, and in a few minutes the yarn was blue! During this transformation, the yarn needs to be turned, and spread to even the shade. But it was just stunning to watch. The process gradually slowed, but after 90 minutes my first sample was light blue with maybe a hint of green. I took up sample #2 and did the same. The colour shift was not as quick as with the hot yarn, but this did also turn.

Hot skein straight out of the pot!

Skein #1 mid way in the process. You can see
how the mddle bits are still pink, and the colour more purple.

The weather turned to overcast, and the sample didn't get any more sun, but the blue was lovely and a bit deeper than the first one. The third skein was taken inside, and dried without any

sunlight exposure. And here are the results!

The finished hue. 

Just to compare the difference sunlight makes.
The pink is dried away from the sun, and will not turn blue.

Who would have thought that a humble yellow crust could produce such stunning colours?
I am very happy with the experiment, and I have more planned. When it comes to light fastness, I have discovered that the pink will fade quite a bit in sunlight. The blue however, seems to be holding up really well, which is good news. Lichens are a wonderful source of colour, and there are many different species to choose from. Luckily, most of them does not require 16 weeks of fermenting (only about 4), but it was worth it :)

Have you ever tried dyeing with plants, lichens or fungi?

Getting ready for fall

Wow. It's been so long now, I don't even know where to start.
On a positive note, I have loads to blog about. It is getting back into the habit that is hard, but here it goes!

Just to warm myself up (no pun intended) I am sharing this scarf I knit recently. Knitting hasn't really been my strong suit in summer, but I have actually knit loads the past months. Making my own yarns might have something to do with it :)

First off, the pattern I used is this lovely infinity/eternity scarf called Matanuska, free on Ravelry here. It is simple, and quick to memorize, perfect if you like to zone out in front of the tv. It is also great if you have a limited amount of yarn, or you don't know the exact yardage. It is consists of few repeats, and you just knit until you run out.

The yarn for this project is my first fractal spun yarn from 100 grams of Corriedale fibre. To read about that particular process, click here.

I was very anxious to knit with this yarn, just to see the colour effect, and it didn't disappoint. The pattern is perfect for hand spun multicoloured. Because of its simple geometric shapes (a bit like honeycombs), it does not compete with the features of the yarn, and show it off wonderfully.

The fractal spinning gives the yarn a subtle self striping effect, and the colours merge together harmoniously. I never tire of looking at this scarf, getting lost in all the pinks, purples, oranges and yellows!

(If you'd like to view this project on Ravely, here's the link.)

I am ready for the cold now, but I CAN still wait a month or two for it to arrive..
How 'bout you?

All kinds of distractions!

Well, hello there!
I'm sorry for the absence, but there has been so many things to do now that summer is here. But I suspect y'all are familiar with the phenomenon :) Gardening, sun bathing, kayaking, local spinning get-togethers, knitting, sewing, it all has to be done!

I am still procrastinating taking photos of my finished linen outfit. There is nothing wrong with it, it's just me never getting round to making the effort to dress up.
Besides, these last weeks I've been properly busy spinning wool. During the weeks of Le Tour de France cycling race, there was a tour of its own for spinning called Tour de Fleece, on Ravelry.

Norway had a national team, and I guesstimate we were about 30 spinners, spinning and posting our produce online every day. It was fun and inspiring, and I got lots of spinning done! And at the end there were prizes drawn! I actually won something, but I don't yet know what it is. Only that it's spinning related :)

Here's what I spun; first up my fractal yarn I wrote about in my previous post. I am very happy with it, but I won't see the true magic of it until I knit it!

Fractal spun Corriedale wool from YummyYarns on Etsy.

Next up is wool I actually dyed myself! One thread is gradient blues, and the other thread is from yellow, orange, red and every shade in between :)

Selfdyed Norwegian White wool, Ashford acid dyes.

This next skein is Finnish wool, that I bought off Etsy, from a seller called Vittoria Segreta. It is hand dyed by her, but she did not make the roving. I wasn't entirely happy with this wool, it was coarse and contained quite a lot of vegetable matter. The blue colour stained my fingers badly while spinning, and the yarn ended up quite scratchy and has no bounce or spring. A shame really, as I love the colourway. This is also fractal yarn, but since it is such poor quality, I really don't know what to do with it...

Next, is Norwegian fur sheep wool. The grey is natural, and is the same I used for my Sheeply vest.

I made two 100g skeins, and they are both chain plied on the spinning wheel.

Lastly, is another skein of my own dye. It's 50/50 fur sheep and Norwegian white. The dark thread is fur sheep, dyed dark navy blue. So dark in fact, that it look almost black. It was my very first attempt, and I overdid the colour blend, to put it mildly! Oh well, live and learn. The yarn is lovely, and one of my most successful spins :)

I also used my Turkish drop spindle, but it is so slow compared to the wheel, so I only use it for taking along in my bag if I'm going somewhere that involves waiting or riding along in a car! The fibre here is hand dyed Polwarth, a lovely soft wool (like fine merino) and I'm spinning it as thin as I can, and plying it directly in the spindle.

I also made the time to go pick some wild raspberries :) The forests are overflowing with different berries now, so the winters supply of jam should be sorted! Oh how I love homemade jam :)

I also have some exciting sewing projects going now (rockabilly circle skirt dress, anyone?), so hopefully there will pop up something interesting for you non-wool-people soon ;)

Enjoy yourselves, until next time!

Meanwhile, in Norway.

I was hoping to have pictures of my linen project done  by today, but I had the dubious pleasure of getting food poisoning on Thursday evening. I am still not myself, but I have been well enough to eat, sit upright, and spin some wool yesterday evening, and today.

So while you just have to wait some more to see the Linen outfit, you can feast your eyes on my latest wool creations :)

Remember these two lovely bundles of colour?

Let's start with the blue one, shall we? It was gifted to me by a lovely lady I met at a spinning get-together earlier in June. For people looking to get hold of the same lovely fibre, it can be bought at Alpakka Enghaugen (which is a Norwegian site) This particular colourway is called Aquarius, and is 80% merino and 20% tussah silk. Soft as kitten-fluff!

It is spun entirely by hand on a Turkish spindle, and is plied on the go. Also known as Navajo ply, it produces a 3-ply yarn. 100 grams ended up as 568 meters ready-to-knit yarn.

I wonder what you will be, yarn!
Maybe a shawl?

I just lose myself in those colours....!

The yellow/orange/pink/purple roving is bought from YummyYarns on Etsy. It is hand painted, and the fibre is 100% Corriedale.
There is an online spinning event going now, called Tour De Fleece, and I am taking part in the Norwegian group on Ravelry. The event is just for fun, where we spin during the Tour De France.

Here, I am spinning my long repeats. I have my roving in one thick bunch,
and I spin the colours as they come but being careful not to mix them too much.
(and no, I am not spinning in the nude:)

So I started my Corriedale project yesterday for the first leg of the tour. The plan is to make fractal yarn, and I have now spun my singles. These are then being spun together to form fractal 2-ply yarn. I have never tried it before, but it should be very interesting. The spinning itself is like any other spinning, the magic is in how you treat the colours, and split your roving.

Short colour repeats on the left, long ones on the right.

A mid-construction shot of the long repeats.

To put it short, you split your roving down the middle lengthwise. Then you split one of the halves into many thin lengths, and spin those as normal. You then get one single thread with short colour-repeats. The other half, you spin as is, to produce one single with long colour-repeats. Then you ply, and Voilà! Fractal yarn :)
The whole point of it, reveals itself when you knit up your yarn. It produces a lovely self-striping effect (and makes you never want to knit with plain yarns again).

These are not mine, I gracefully stole borrowed the photo from
Everything Old Crafts. Aren't they gorgeous???

If you'd like to read a bit about it, and see some more examples of fractal yarn, follow this link. Or you know, just Google it :)

That's all for now, folks!