Friday Finish.

The HyperNoro scarf is all finished, I love the lightness of this scarf ~ it weighs next to nothing but drapes beautifully. The yarn felt quite crunchy before I soaked and blocked it but it's softened up nicely and developed a slight halo ~

And here are some pics of the Orchard fibre I spun, that's now finished too!

Singles

'N' plying

Finished skein
NZ Halfbred fibre
Orchard colourway
250 metres
Navajo Plied
sport weight












Now to decide what to make next. I think a bit more spinning, possibly this little beauty:

This is an 85% Polwarth & 15% silk blend and is dyed randomly. Maybe I will fractal spin this one and see what happens!

Spinning Autumn Colours

My HyperNoro scarf is off the needles and I will post more photo's tomorrow when it's finally dry.

I don't know what to knit next ~ so while I think about what to make I thought I would do a little spinning. This fibre is New Zealand Half Bred and the colourway is 'Orchard' a beautiful combination of Autumnal gold/tan, greens and plum-purple, just right for this time of year.

I've lightly drafted the fibre out and as it's dyed in a gradient colourway I'm going to spin it from light to dark then 'N' ply to preserve the colour changes. I will be aiming for a fingering/4 ply weight finished yarn.

Here's a shot of my HyperNoro scarf on the blocking wires. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out, it's big ~ 210 cm long x 20 cm wide. The first fan section took 15g, so I kept knitting until I had 15g left then knit the second, final fan.

More Spinning

Well it's already the last day of the month, I haven't been doing much in the way of crafting really but I have been doing a little spinning:

Fibre: Ashford's 70% merino 30% Alpaca
Colour: Rosehip
2 ply yarn
4 ply weight finished yarn
skein: 92g/ 355mtrs

Fibre: Halfbred combed top
Colour: Light Fawn
3 ply ('N' Plied)
Sport weight finished yarn
Skein: 254g/565mtrs

More Jam Making....

It's the1st day of February already, I haven't had any time to blog about anything for the past couple of weeks. My husband has had to return to England at very short notice as there's been a sudden, unexpected death in the family, so I'm left here holding the fort by myself.

I've been knitting away on my zig zag tunic on and off, and I recently bought a jumbo flyer so I have been spinning, the only thing is the bigger the bobbin, the longer it takes to fill it!

But today I decided to make jam:

Peach Jam
1 kg peaches, skinned, de-stoned and sliced
800g sugar
juice of 1 lemon

Firstly, put a saucer into the freezer.
Then skin the peaches by scoring a cross on the base of the fruits. Dunk them into boiling water for 2 mins, then plunge them into a sink full of cold water. The skins will now slip off very easily.

Remove the stones and slice the fruit.

Put the peaches in a large pan, I use a stockpot to make my jams. Add 2 tablespoons of water plus the lemon juice and cook gently until the fruit softens, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the sugar, stirring very well. Heat very gently until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a full boil and cook for about 10 minutes, until setting point is reached. Test for the setting point by putting a teaspoon full of jam onto the saucer from the freezer, when it's cold push your finger through it, it should wrinkle up, if not boil for a further 2 minutes and recheck.

Stir in a knob of butter to disperse any scum and pour the jam, carefully, into warm sterilised jars.

Apricot Jam
(needs to be started the night before)

1 kg apricots
1 kg sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon butter

Start by greasing the pan with the butter. Halve the fruit and remove the stones, layer the fruit in the pan with the sugar, pour over the lemon juice, cover and leave overnight.

This process draws the juice out of the fruit, firming it up.

The next day cook the fruit over a very low heat, until the sugar has completely dissolved. Bring to a full boil and check for a set after 10 minutes, mine took 12 minutes but each batch veries.

Put into warm sterilised jars and store in a cool dark place.

I spun this skein of yarn ~ I bought the fibre as Polwarth, but I'm certain it isn't Polwarth it feels more like half bred to me:

95g, 300mtrs of DK weight yarn.












Now I'm spinning this beautiful Half Bred fibre:

Onto these giant bobbins:

I've got 210g onto one bobbin so far but still have room for possibly another 50g or more. I'm hoping to spin a sweaters worth of yarn, wish me luck!

Emptying the Bobbins & Tarndie Polwarth

I spent a few hours today plying and emptying some of my bobbins, I love the feeling when I have empty bobbins. Then I finally finished the batch of Halfbred that I started such a long time ago, and plyed up the last bit of the Shetland that was left over:

Halfbred, 446grams, 1425 mtrs, hopefully a sweaters worth of yarn.

Shetland, 984 mtrs, 350 grams














My next spin (starting in about 5 minutes) is going to be this beautiful fibre that I received recently from Australia, it's Tarndie Polwarth. 100g white, 50g grey and 50g dark chocolate. I'm looking forward to spinning this and I like to spin Polwarth by putting a lot of twist into both the singles and the plying as it can poof up considerably when soaked/washed.

A Half Bred Fleece....

I needed a break from all the alpaca, so yesterday evening I was sorting out my stash cupboard when I came across a half bred fleece I had purchased last year, intending to wash and prep the fibre ready for spinning of course ~ until I got side tracked by all the alpaca.

Half Bred Sheep:
A registered breed that was originally developed in the 19th century by crossing one of the English long wools such as Romney or English Leicester with the merino. They were developed for both wool and meat and are suited to hill and high country.

The staples are well defined and chunky with crimp right up to the tip. It is classed as a fine wool with medium bulk. There can be wide variation amongst fleeces.

Fibre is usually between 21 - 33 microns.
staple length is 75-110 mm
An excellent fibre when soft durability is required.

It's a waxy type fleece so needs a good wash in very hot water.

I had already prepped a small portion of it and spun it up, but the majority was sat looking at me, so I bagged some up and put it in a bucket of hot water and dish washing liquid, soaked for 20 minutes then changed the water and soaked for a further 15 minutes then 2 rinses in hot water. I set it out on a mesh rack to dry overnight:

Obviously the locks on the left are unwashed, the ones on the right washed. They come up nice and clean apart from a tiny bit on the very tip which I snip off with scissors. The combed fibre is at the back, yet more beautiful squishy nests that I will look forward to spinning. I would say the fibre is next to skin soft for me, it's lofty and light and would knit into a nice comfortable, yet hard wearing sweater.












I enjoyed spinning some of it into a fingering weight 2 ply yarn:

I have 2.6kg of this to get through and have noticed there's very little waste when combing it. I shall continue to work on this when needing a break from the alpaca.