Show and tell

It was a lovely day outside and just as lovely inside. Plenty of colour and ideas an some good, productive conversations.

Chris: has dyed 4 plaits with Earth Palette dyes in blue & pale orange.

Cathy: 3 balls of spun wool dyed with various natural dyes & a warm thick cowl in
dark green and yellow in a honeycomb pattern.

Janette: scarf & matching beanie in red/grey, beanie in blue, and an alpaca scarf
dark with various coloured fleck, warm jumper in autumn colours.

John: a woven scarf in a multi coloured boucle yarn with a green centre.

Hilary: 1 skein of lime green tops plied with coloured silk hankies, a ball of spun
alpaca dyed fleece and the cutest, small rabbit from the pattern Cathy put on our blog.

Colour your life

 

We really are lucky to be surrounded by colour and it is always interesting to watch people lay out their colours, to see how they have prepared them for spinning and then to watch those colours turn into a spool of yarn which is  plied and ready to go. Sometimes it is for sale. Sometimes it is for that special project . Sometimes it is on commission or as a request. We love colour and we love spinning.  Sometimes it’s just because. Because we love that colour. Because we want to make that wool batt. Because we need a break from spinning one colour for a big project. Look at all these colours. Some of them have been spun with a special purpose in mind. Others turn up in projects the person didn’t know they were going to make until they did! What would you do with these colours? Would you put any of them together or have you got something at home they would go with. Thinking about colours and where they fit in your life is how you keep yourself inspired and creative.

Sleeveless turtleneck jumper

Hilary’s sleeveless turtleneck jumper was a show stealer. It was the colour for a start. Alexis , in our group, had dyed the wool and it’s called periwinkle. It’s a beautiful colour. The cable pattern centre front looks like the jumper is ruched so it’s not just an ordinary cable effect. Because it is sleeveless it means you can wear different tops underneath and create different looks when you wear it. Hilary spun the wool and knitted it so it is quite a big project which has had a very happy ending.

There’s a  free pattern for a sleeveless turtleneck  on knitting patterns galore. There are also some good turtleneck patterns on knitting-bee. We like the trapeze pullover with the turtleneck.

Resistance is useless

We have been spinning all right and we cannot resist. It’s the colours, the fibres, the wheels, the feel of fleece , tops and roving. It’s the fact we can create beautiful things from lumps of beautiful fibres. We can comb them, card them, make wool batts, dye them. It’s a visual and tactile adventure. Every week we bring along our wheels and we can spin whatever we want to spin. We can see what other people are doing and just have all this colour and fibre input. We can see the process. We can enjoy looking at and feeling the fibre. Then we can do what Marjorie has done : turn out some lovely, colourful socks or a classic style Tunisian crochet jacket. We can’t help spinning, nor do we want to.