Not dead yet - aka Spun up Colourways: Blue Jay

When I was in high school (that's the last four years of secondary school before going off to university for those of you unfamiliar with the American school system), some friends of mine and I were huge Monty Python fans. Such huge fans that we decided to recreate the "Bring out your dead!" plague scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail in our Advanced Placement French class. All of this is just a long way of apologizing for the long blog absence of the last couple of months.

There has been dyeing though, and packaging, and sending off of samples to box schemes in the UK and the US. All the dyeing has left me with a pile of scraps to spin up as samples.

This is my Blue Jay colorway done on Corriedale. I love Corriedale for a couple of reasons: 1) it's lovely to spin, and is a great beginner fiber, and 2) the wool has a bit of a sheen to it so that the final yarn has a lovely lustre and shine when spun worsted.

I spun up the scraps three ways: standard 2-ply, standard 3-ply and chain ply.

The scraps for the 2-ply didn't have much of the darker reddish brown section, so it's a mostly bright blue sample.

The 3-ply had more of that darker colored top, and came out a gorgeous blend of blues and burgundies. I can see this as a great stockinette sweater, or a cabled cowl - something with a bit of texture that won't get lost in the variegation of the yarn.

The chain ply gave a lovely rounded yarn that I suspect will knit up with some lovely stripes. The colors are fairly close in hue, so it won't be an extremely contrasty striping pattern, but I think it will end up being pretty nautical!

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Spun up colourways: Euglena

I've been spinning up the black Shetland fleece I got this year at Wonderwool Wales as one of my Tour de Fleece challenges, but yesterday was a rest day, and I was desparate for something with a bit of color...enter a bag of Euglena Suffolk ends and my Lendrum.

I ended up with 232 yds of wooly green 2-ply that I think are going to become socks somewhere down the line. The leftover singles from one bobbin were chain plied into a wee mini skein I'll hang on to as a sample.

This was the perfect little palate cleanser between chunks of natural colored fleece. Now it's back to Bobbin 3 of Shetland - I want to finish this fleece by Sunday!

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New, new, new!

At long last, the website redesign is (mostly) over! Not much has changed on the surface of it all, but you may notice there's a lot more fibre available all of a sudden...

The big changes happened in the way things are organised. All dyed fibers are now listed by fiber type; i.e. Cheviot, Texel, Dorset Horn, etc. Under each category, you'll find pictures for the colorways currently available, and links to pages with the colorway descriptions. This enables me to list all the available colorways rather then being limited by listing them individually. So, I hope you all enjoy the selection available, and that you find the new organisation easy to navigate!

I've added a bunch of Texel this week, and there are silk hankies to come next week. Or whenever they actually dry - as it's grey and humid in London this week, this might not be until next month! There's also a sale going on to celebrate the Tour de France/Fleece - 10% off all available fibres until the 21st of July.

I hope everyone is enjoying the (hopefully) better weather, and happy spinning!

R xx

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It's been awfully quiet around here...

...but a lot has been going on behind the scenes. First and foremost, I'm working on a website redesign that will get around the current 15 store item limit I've been running into. The major change is going to be that products will be listed by fiber type instead of by colorway. You'll be able to go to specific pages for BFL, Cheviot, Shetland, etc and see all the colors that are available on those fibers at that particular time. I'm hoping this will make things a bit easier for those of you looking for specific wools, and enable me to list more products at one time, thereby giving all of you more options of colors to purchase!

The second upcoming event is the Tour de Fleece (run from the Ravelry group here), which starts on 29th June. I will be having a sale, starting next Tuesday (4th of June) with all fibers 10% off from now until the end of the Tour de France, which is the 21st of July. So that gives you plenty of time to stock up!

The third upcoming event I've been working on is still under wraps for a little while longer, but I will say this: it involves yarn, teams, and a pub. Those of you in London (or who might be convinced to come to London for a day of yarny fun) should keep an eye out for an announcement soon!

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