The Merino Casmere dk is now in the shop

Please note the slight increase in price.  The few older ones that were remaining from the previous batch of yarn are now slightly reduced and can be found in the Bargain Basket sale pages.

Patterns are still ‘UFO’s’ due to dimness of pattern compiler (me) who still can’t figure the charts      Soon, my little ones….. soooon……

These lovelies are currently on a UK tour, showing their faces at H-art and Ally Pally on my friend Anne’s Artisan Yarns stand, and they’ve still got one to go – FibreFlurry in Birmingham this weekend.  Then they will be joined by me at Anne’s open studio weekend in Hereford the following weekend.  They’ll then return to the fold to be put on my virtual shelves around 8th/9th November.

Here’s a little look…

Merino Cashmere dk, 212m per 100g.

And a sneak peek of some patterns I’m writing up to go with them, taking one or two skeins:

From the sublime…

Glisten, silk at 400m per 50g.

…to the rediculous(ly thin)!

Heirloom Gossamer, merino silk cashmere at a mere 2600m per 100g!

I seem to have a blue green thing going on

Oh, and keep it here for a Merino Cashmere dk preview!

Yup, I’m dreaming fibre at the moment!  I’m spinning for a TappanZee, and, frustratingly, have not finished yet.  Life keeps getting in the way, and I really want to start the knitting!  There’s a spin/knit along in the Spunky Eclectic group on Rav specially for us wot ‘aven’t done a whole hanspun sweater before, and are scared stiff of it being a yukky misfit after all that work. Hand holding at it’s best!

Anyhoo, I have some new fibre for the shop, and I’m proud to present my new Shetland to you.  It’s lovely and springy and comes from Shetland sheep living on the Shetland Isles.  I have a natural coloured base and a Moorit base, which is a warm reddish brown.  I’ve dyed some of the Moorit first, as I was eager to see how the colours would work.

I am now dyeing largish batches of each fibre colour. They won’t be repeated once they run out, but there is plenty for a larger project or two.

I’ve even thought of actual names!  This one is Damask on moorit;

and this is Slippery Rocks on moorit.  Moody colours.

Merino Tencel is also back on the menu and the first colour is..

…Summery!

They’re in the shop right now!

Yarn Forward this month (issue 35) has another pattern in APY!!! It’s the Drops Sweater by Shweta Shankar Khatri.  I was slightly caught on the hop with this one.  Yarn was supplied ages ago at IKnit in September and had heard nothing since, sooo…. there was no yarn in the shop :$.  Much dyeing later, and there is!

I was curious how the two yarns would work together.  There is the thick, soft and heavily drapey aran, drapey because of all the alpaca and bamboo in it, and the thin and bouncy merino silk heavy-lacewieght.  I haven’t seen it in real life, but it seems to have worked!  It reminds me a little of those drop stitch oversized sweaters that were around in the eighties, kind of gothic/punk, usually in black and very easy to wear.

Anyhooo, there is yarn in the original blues:

and some other options I enjoyed putting together..

The complimentary yarn bases were dyed together, at the same time,  for each colour.  Can you see how the dye takes differently in the yarns?  How  the alpaca yarn looks softer in colour, and the merino silk yarn takes up the colour more vibrantly?  Interesting to have a direct comparisson, methinks.

And I had an aran sweater in my head with a grey body and maize fairisle yoke……

hmmmmm……

May I introduce you to Rocio, a beautiful silk stole designed by the very talented Ruth Garcia-Alcantud, appearing in this month’s Yarn Forward magazine (issue 35).  The stole uses just 2 skeins of Glisten, shown here in colour G7075.  Or why not try it in the blue-purple of G7081 or perhaps the pinks of G7078, summery oranges of G7071…….?

Ruth has other lovely stole, shawl and sock patterns, amongst other things, on her website and in her Ravelry store.

I’ve also been dyeing more yarn for the popular Damson Cowl pattern by Kirstie McLeod in issue 26 of  The Knitter.  It’s MC1002#2, Merino Cashmere dk, but you might also be inspired by the subtle colour changes in MC1009, or the bright MC1006….

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

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…