I’ll be there!!!

I’m not on the official list, but I will have my mini-wall of colour making up part of the Artisan Yarns stand, number 119.

I’ve been dyeing, dyeing and dyeing some more!  I shall be taking mostly Smoothie Sock, my favourite of all my sock yarns, and some of my lovely alpaca, silk and cashmere Anna’s Lace.

I decided early on to concentrate on the aspect of dyeing I like the best – the colour- rather than many different yarn bases. They will all be non-pooling colours.   I am especially pleased with these two..

The first is a really deep bronze with bronzy greens and plum, and all the warm browns that a mix of the two makes.  The second is an amazingly saturated olive green.  In fact I like them so much, I am going to keep some skeins all to myself!   To knit a Tempest!

Might get it finished for autumn…….2015

Happy knitting 

I like dyeing my ‘painted landscapes’.  That is, where the colours move from one to another along the length of the skein, using as many as 12 different shades and tones.  However, they are sometimes hard to knit with as, depending on what you’re knitting, the colours can mix and pattern and pool in ways you might not want or expect.

BUT…there are times when this is exactly what you want.  Just take a look at these..

They’re the amazing pooling shawls of Wenat of Yarn Floozies.  Designed to make the very best of yarn dyed in a sequence from one end of the skein to the other, just like aformentioned painted landscapes, in fact, and many of the Wollmeise and Lorna’s Laces colourways.

She has full instructions and a pattern to show you how to work it all out here , and more (very generously free) patterns in the sidebar, not to mention an interesting and lively blog shared with her friend Dotty.

To make the most of this exciting way of working, there will be more Smoothie Sock landscapes coming to an APY store near you soon!

Lovely photographs used with kind permission of Wenat

update 9 June 2010 8pm BST

There’s lots of new colours of Anna’s Lace in the shop! Here are a few honeys…..

At 1200m per 100g, there’s plenty on one skein for a good sized shawl.  How about Madli’s shawl (Ravelry link) from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush which will take just one skein, or the stunning Cap Shawl (Ravelry link) by Jane Sowerby from Victorian Lace Today, taking 2 skeins, or indeed most of the fantastic patterns from either of these two books!

Happy knitting

Let me introduce you to this lovely pair of socks, knit by the very talented Laura who not only knits, but makes the most beautiful glass beads.

They’re Crocus socks by Wendy D Johnson from Toe-up Socks For Every Body.  The yarn is Smoothie Sock, in a non-pooling shade of pumpkin.  They’re quite splendid, are they not?  I’m really pleased with how the colour has subtly variegated – just the effect I was hoping to achieve

Thanks to Laura for permission to use the lovely photographs.

The sky is blue here today, but there is still plenty of cloud in these parts! Well, on my shelves  anyway.  It’s my NEW YARN!!!

It’s called Cloud, mainly because it is as soft a those lovely little fluffy white fair-weather cumulus clouds look!  It is 70% Baby Alpaca, 20% Silk and 10% Cashmere and has 400m to 100g.

It really is as soft as it looks. !  It made it’s first public appearance at Wonderwool 2 weeks ago, and ilicited many oooh’s and ahhh’s and even intakes of breath when stroked.

It will be really lovely for lightweight garments that need to drape, and wonderful for shawls and next to the skin items.  In fact, here is one I made earlier..

Old Shale Lace Triangle by Evelyn A. Clark from the summer 2008 edition of Spin-Off magazine.  With a little bit of careful weighing, I got 5 full repeats and had just 8g left from the 100g skein.

The photos are being uploaded this afternoon and, all being well, I should be able to press the button this evening to bring you the first selection of colours.  I hope you like them.

If you’re lurking around on the website later this evening (about 8 pm BST), you should see a whole bunch of Damsel plus appearing!  The first two test-skeins disappeared rapidly some time ago, so I am really pleased to at last get some more on the shelves.

It is a lofty and bouncy heavy laceweight 80% Extra Fine Merino and 20%  Silk, with 800m to 100g, and here is a taste of the colours from the cooler end of the spectrum…

I’m so very glad that I have discovered the wonders of handspinning.  I’m no expert, far from it, but I am getting the hang!  I’ve even managed to knit an FO of which I am quite proud.  It’s Daybreak, by Stephen West.

The medium brown that starts the shawl, mid-neck, is semi solid Smoothie Sock and the rest is a 2-ply spun from a large braid of superwash Blufaced Leicester, dyed by me.  I’m just blown away by the way the hanspun shows as really striping where it’s separated by the brown.  The closeup shows the last dozen or so rows of just handspun.

My success led me, of course, to the internet in search of more fibrey goodness.  I had a small accident at Daniela Kloppmann’s  FeltStudioUK etsy shop..

They came with a lovely mini batt, which caused another accident, this time a 3 month sub to Daniela’s 8oz batt club!  And then I got to meet Daniela and her fibres in real live person when we were setting up for Wonderwool on the Friday!  Her fibres and colours are truly mouthwatering, and I fell in love with a set of batts that actually kept me awake that night!  I think I may have been Daniela’s first sale before the doors opened on Saturday!  Here it is – I just love the way it looks like a complete landscape..

I can’t tell you just how gorgeous this fibre is.  I’m sure it would photograph better out of the bag, but I don’t want to mess it up trying to get it back in again! I have a plan to spin a single from each one, starting by pulling strips off from one end, and matching  it with the second single, to get a single colour shift from one end of the yarn to the other.

If you’re a spinner of felter, you seriously need to give her shop a visit.  If you’re not a spinner or felter, then you still seriously need to give her shop a visit, because she is also a hugely talented Art Yarn spinner.

Just in case you missed it, it’s FeltStudioUK ! 

So, Wonderwool is done and dusted, and much fun was had.  There were so many smiley people, and I love the whole setting up shop/stallholding thing and meeting lots of lovely people, all connected together with a common love (or maybe obsession!) of all things fibrey.

Here is a supercute fluffy thing who was inhabiting the stand opposite.  Just look at those tufts!

and here is the Artist’s Palette Wall.

What you can’t tell from this is that the yarn is  (mostly – it was day 2!) 3 skeins deep!

There is lots left and it will be uploaded onto the site in batches.  We are trying to get out heads around a new way of updating, which will make it much quicker in the long run to enter all the data and pics, and will result in a one-press upload onto the site.  The first one will be sometime today, fingers crossed, which will be the Smoothie Sock.  Due to the way the site works, the new entries will appear underneath the current entries.  We’ll see how it goes.  I can’t tie it down to a time yet though.  I suppose you could say it’s still in it’s Beta phase!  Here is a little taster of what’s to be added..

Next post – fluff!

A mountain of new yarn, lots of  fibre, and stock from the shop will all be making its way to The Royal Welsh showground in Builth Wells this weekend.  Here’s a hint of what might be in store…….

Smoothie Sock painted landscapes!

It would be lovely to see you there 

The Smootherino has been updated with some of these…..

and you’ll find a few of the older ones at discounted prices if you navigate to the end of the Smootherino pages.

Happy Smoothing!  xx