Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Castletown Helix scarf and little mats

 This little helix scarf was lost for a while (hiding under the clutter in my son's apartment) then was found - and completed. It's knit from the BFL that I hand dyed and fractal spun last year - some details on a previous blog.



Little mats woven on the rigid heddle. Hessian warp and hand spun wool weft.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Swaldale sunrise shawlette.

I decided to make another mini-shawl/scarf from the Swaldale yarn I'd spun. It has many of the colors I like so much - cerulean blue and and a sober orange/terracotta for two. Other colors add warmth and deeper tones.
Knit on size 5 mm's, trhe garter stitich makes rows of different streaks and lines of colr - that remine me more of sunrise on on a brightening ske than sunset on a darkening sky so I'll call it my Sunrise shawlette
Swaldale - these hardy North of England sheep have a long hairy fleece but also a fine undercoat. It's the fine undercoat I was after when I spun up the fiber. That task is not for the fiant-hearted - I had to continually remove coarser finber and even kemp as I preparted, spun, dyed and now while knitting the yarn.  The resultant yarn, in the hank and kni up, is denser and heavier than my own little Irish cross bred ewe's yarn but I expect it to be warm light enough when finished and hopefully the size and drape of the shwlette will be as handy to wear as my previous shawlette.