Angora knit cable braided necklace

I plied the lumpy angora singles:

This is a free pattern Cable braided necklace, from that yarn design genius 

http://olgajazzzy.blogspot.ie/2010/12/cable-braided-necklace.html

Thank you Olga!

And no, it's not itchy but it does supply a little warmth behind the neck, which is a good thing here at the moment as it's been below zero quite often - however, quite sunny now.

Spinning Angora

I bought 100 gms of white angora rabbit fiber form World of Wool, plus a little sample pack containing raw and combed fiber (very small amounts).
I was a bit taken aback but the uneven lengths and and and amount of noyles and what appear to be second cuts in raw fiber! I thought if it were shorn a la German angora, the fibers would be fairly long and uniform unless they were shorn at the wrong time i.e. before coat had reached a decent length and while there was lots of short new coat growth. If French or English - well it would have been better to pluck molting locks rather than include all those short bits in a shearing.

Anyway, as expected, the hand was very soft and silky to feel. I carded it with mini-carders into 88 little rolags and have almost finished spinning 44 of them onto one spool at 12 tpt over 1/2 inch i.e. about 24 twists per inch using short forward draw with smoothing  and around 19 wpi. This is very approximate as ther a many little slubs - due to included  nolyes - which I elected to leave in. I left these because a) they are very soft and probably won't cause annoyance when used to knit, b) they smooth over fairly easily and c) working to eliminate them completely seems to make a weaker yarn - with this proparation anyway.

 The blue fiber roving I prepared from one of my sheep's fleece and dyed with Eurolana dye.

 A little rabbit current?

First bobbin of singles almost done

 Slubby single - but the slubs are so soft.

I intend to add the plied yarn when it's all done.

I'm such a slow spinner 'though - even allowing for having to do it standing up as my back hurts if I sit for too long. I was making just 40 treadles per minute with this single - while I see others talking about making 80 plus treadles per minute! Could this be due to the sort of fiber they are spinning or the process they are using e.g. long dew vs short worsted draw or the wheel they have - perhaps set for more rapid use? I don;t know - I think it's just because I'm slow at this even after 8 years at it!

Ah well, maybe I should get an e-spinner! But the price is huge - but then again I might go to "Wonderwool" in Wales this year and see one there!!

loveTheSeasons.blogspot.ie

January at loveTheSeasons

After Christmas already!

SO long since I posted! And now Christmas day already gone! Some problems kept me from the computer but yesterday went well.
Might as well just bang up photos taken over the past weeks:

Well a few pics for now - I think tye speak for themselves.

Winter woad

I planted some seeds from some of my woad plants in August. I thought they might germinate next spring - however, a dozen grew into fairly large plants by October. While they have not had much sunshine so probably had less indigo in them, I decided to take a chance on using them to dye 2 oz of my sheep's fleece that I had already combed into tops.

Below: strained leaves with baking soda being oxygenated

Below: sitting in a warm water pot after spectralite added

Below: wool soaked for 1/2 hour then lifted to turn blue in the air

Below: Powder blue top

I added another 2 oz and got an "icy blue" after soaking.

It's a pale blue only but rather nice - a wintery blue I suppose.

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Relearning spinning wheel - standing up

I got my Ashford Traveller wheel with it's 2 treadles several years ago and it's worked well for me but in recent timesI'm having such a lot of trouble sitting down. Sitting provokes pain around the greater trochanter of the femur and ischium on the left side.

That makes using my wheel pretty impossible. E-spinners are SO expensive that I dismissed the idea of getting one of those 'though I could have used one while standing.

I decided treadling while standing up - obviously using just one treadle at a time . Actually it works! - I alternate beet - but so far I'm successful using the right-most pedal only. I'm gradually getting my drifting similar to how it was while sitting down and plying doesn't seem to present much problems.

The picture is not great. I tried to show my left foot on the right treadle while spinning a single.

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Another bird in the hand

A few years ago, a robin came into the house and I carried it around for quire a while before it got lifted on a gust of wind and flew away. I think a link to that little vide is on my blog somewhere.
A few days ago, a finch went into the garage - probably through the cat flat and ended up beating itself against the window. Lucky for it, Rufus, master killer cat, wasn't in his lair in the garage so I was able to scoop it up and carry it out. It clung to my fingers until it got its breath back then eventually flew off.