Colour your life

When you come to the spinning group on Monday, you cannot fail to be affected by the beautiful view of the ocean outside and then all the lovely colours inside. Some of the colours are just extraordinary. You then add to that the tactile feel of fleece and fibre. It’s quite a sensory experience which feeds the imagination. We are just going to leave these pictures here so you can look and react and get your own ideas about what you’d change or improve or how you’d love to use these colours.

Show and Tell

Margaret: The graph knitting book she had got at Equipment Day along with the sock wool, the teal coloured wool from Rare Fibres and the little present we all got from them with the ruler and spinning wheel earrings.

Christine: Three handspun wool green hats with pastel flower buttons. Spun wool in soft oranges and creams. Rose fibre from Rare Wools,

Jan:  Snowman with the turquoise accessories. Amigurumi crochet.

Alexis: Knitted hats in handspun wool with felted trims. One in lavender and the other in green. Ball of spun wool in purple and white.

Cathy: Cake of dyed handspun wool in oranges and fawns (onion skins). Cake of dark alpaca fleece plied with fawn coloured Corriedale. Fluffy , puffy child’s beanie knitted in acrylic yarn in pastel colours.

Sheila: Baby beanie in handspun  brown alpaca . Hand kitted in double rib.  Hand knitted dark blue beret with a top knot feature in handspun wool. Green and red fleece dyed with food colouring. Carded bag of Suzie Horn’s bits which she’d got at Equipment Day. Book on weaving. Bag of fibre from rare wools in autumn colours.

Marina: Massive bobbin of spun wool. Predominantly blue.

Wraps per inch

Karin’s wraps per inch gadget

Yarn still seems to be measured in Imperial standard measurements. People want to know the yardage as well as the weight .Wraps per inch is what you need if you are trying to determine the weight of the yarn for weaving , which crochet hook to use or which size knitting needles. People who work with yarn have to keep converting needle and hook sizes and then yarn weights. Luckily wraps per inch is easy. The Craft Yarn Council gives an easy conversion chart for  wraps per inch so you can identify your yarn weight. Knitting Paradise gives you a chart so you know which hook or needle size to use.  You can double the yarn (fold in half) and put through a needle gauge to work out what size needle. There are gadgets you can buy or make to determine wraps per inch. Karin had brought hers along last week to show Marina.

This video gives some good explanations about determining yarn weight:

Ashford Inkle Loom

One of Christine’s prized possessions from the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show last week was this Ashford Inkle Loom. She had already started weaving on it before she got home and finished the belt at Monday’s session. It just looked so cool. We loved the look, the portability, the light weight, the way it was all so well though out and was taking so little space to create something lovely. Christine’s colour choices made the belt. The loom could easily be taken away on a trip, would fit in a shopping bag and then we thought it would need to be properly packed to protect it if it were going to fly anywhere.

 

Ashford has some good instructions for setting it up.