Lab Goddess Fibre Club June 2016

This month's colourway was inspired by Augusta Ada Byron King, otherwise known as Ada, Countess of Lovelace, a mathematician and computer pioneer from the nineteenth century.

Enchantress of Number on 60/40 merino/flax

Ada Lovelace was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the man for whom the phrase "mad, bad and dangerous to know" was coined. She never really knew her father, as her parents separated when she was one month old. Her mother, in an attempt to prevent her child falling prey to the madness that haunted her father, pushed Ada toward mathematics and logic. The result was a woman who, at the age of 17, formed a life-long friendship with Charles Babbage, the father of computers. Her work with Babbage focused around his Analytical Engine, a general purpose mechanical calculator now considered to be the first computer. Countess Lovelace's notes on the Analytical Engine and its function are the first example of a computer program, making her arguably the world's first hacker.

I originally had planned to do this colourway in a variety of neutral, semi-metallic shades, to evoke COMPUTER, but instead ended up using a portrait of Ada Lovelace as the inspiration for the colour palette.

Ada, Countess of Lovelace, painted by Alfred Edward Chalon

I appropriated the purple and burgundy shades of her dress combined with black, brown and grey from the veil for this month's dyeing. The base is 60% merino/40% flax, and spins up into a very interesting and different yarn. The flax gives a crunchy feel to the top while the merino lends softness and some elasticity to what would otherwise be a quite stiff yarn. Finishing and knitting make the yarn even softer.

Quarter 2 LGFC colourways: Enchantress of Number on 60/40 merino/flax (June), Blue Lias on Merino d'Arles (May) and Cacophany on Shetland (April).

There are still slots left in the next quarter's Lab Goddess Fibre Club which will ship out in mid-July. For anyone outside of the UK or EU, the exchange rate is definitely in your favour, and I ship world-wide!

Victoria Sponge

Last month marked our seven year anniversary of moving to the UK from Houston, TX. The past year has been something of a challenge for us, as we've struggled with deciding if we are staying more-or-less permanently, or jumping ship and going back to the States with no definite jobs or plans. Some of this was driven by Himself's dissatisfaction with his job, our worries about secondary school options for Devil, and questions about whether could find a job that would contribute significantly to the household income and give us a few more options. Because, let's be realistic: I am not getting rich selling fibre or knitting patterns or tech editing. Not many people are, and its been something my other half and I have been struggling with for quite a while now.

But over the past few months a lot of things have changed. Dev got into her top choice secondary school. Himself offered to take a package in a recent round of company layoffs and ended up with a promotion instead, one which is addressing many of his concerns and giving him new opportunities, so he's a lot happier with his job. And last week I was offered a job on a new career path, one that uses my scientific training and background but is new and very exciting And last, but by no means least, we're gaining British citizenship.

All of these events coincided with a fibre challenge with my June contribution to the Spinning Box, a sampler scheme just for hand spinners. Each month there's a specific theme, and June's theme was "Natural".

Now anyone who's spent any time around here knows that I don't really do "natural" colours in the undyed sense, so this theme put me in a bit of a quandry. Finally inspiration struck: I have a pile of lovely washed brown Corriedale fleece that I've been meaning to card, along with a bag full of washed BFL locks. And since I've been thinking about adding batts to the Porpoise Fur line up for a while, so I decided to do an initial venture into carding with some natural coloured batts.

Corriedale/BFL batt in progress

While happily carding away, I had a small epiphany: instead of thoroughly blending the two fibres together as I originally intended, I tried carding them in three layers: one layer of brown Corriedale sandwiched between white BFL. As I peeled the batts off of the carder, I had sudden visions of a wild variety of such batts - semisolid outer layers with brightly coloured and unexpected insides, dark layers around colours that would peek through in the finished yarn, varied combinations that would create unexpected finished yarns.

Having spent some time playing with the carder, and working with a couple of other colour options, I'm thrilled to announce the launch of a new product at Porpoise Fur: Victoria Sponge Batts. Named for the resolutely British cake, to celebrate my new status as an official Brit, these batts will be available in small batches from the next shop update. There won't be repeated colourways as such for these, unlike the dyed tops; I'm going to use this product as an opportunity to really step outside my usual recipe-driven process and just play with colour. Lots and lots of colour. I hope you'll join me on this new adventure - I think it's going to be amazing!

Shetland Victoria Sponge Batts - Sponge: natural brown/grey, Jam: three shades of blue

Fibre Club Quarter 3 sign ups

All the Lab Goddess FIbre Club colours to date:
Top right corner: Cortus on Wensleydale; Mutable Loci on Cheviot' Dark Lady on BFL
Bottom right corner (clockwise from top left): A Life Aquatic on Corriedale; Core Shift on Humbug Jacob; Cacophony on Shetland; alpha, beta, gamma on Finnish
Bottom left corner: Blue Lias on Merino d'Arles

It's a grey rainy day here in London to celebrate the end of May, so I've been amusing myself by making photo collages of all the Lab Goddess Fibre Club colourways to date. It's very interesting to see them all together and I'm finding myself brainstorming about what colours are missing from the pallet so far and looking ahead to the upcoming months. Dyeing for the June club will start this week, and be out to Club members by mid-month.

This brings me to my next announcement, which is that spaces in the third quarter of the Fibre Club will open tomorrow at 9:00 am London time, and be available both on the Lab Goddess Fibre Club page and in the Shop. The club will still be £45 plus shipping costs for each space - this includes 4 oz/113 g of fibre dyed in an exclusive colourway inspired by a female scientist and a leaflet with some background on the scientist, as well as information about the base chosen and the development of the colourway. Royal Mail has increased their shipping costs slightly but this will be absorbed into the cost of the club for the time being - shipping costs will be as currently listed on the Fibre Club page.

I've picked the inspiration sources for the rest of the year, and I am really excited to see what colourways come out of it, so please do come and join us! 

Lab Goddess Fibre Club May 2016

Blue Lias on Merino d'Arles

This month the fibre club was inspired by a very famous British scientist who had no formal scientific training: Mary Anning (1799-1847). Born at the end of the 18th century into a working class family, Mary Anning made her first major paleontological discovery at the age of 12, when she discovered the complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur. She spent the rest of her life as a fossil hunter, and reading as much of the available scientific literature as she could, making a name for herself as a fossil expert.

Despite her broad knowledge and expertise, Mary Anning's discoveries were almost entirely attributed to the gentlemen scientists of the day who published on her finds. Only after her untimely death from cancer at the age of 48 were her contributions acknowledged publicly. She is now recognised as having contributed to the establishment of paleontology as a field of study, and her finds were critical in proving extinction.

If you've read this blog at all over the past few weeks, you'll know all about the base I used for this month, which is also the base for the limited edition 2016 Tour de Fleece colours. Bouncy and elastic, this merino makes fabulous yarn for hats and cowls. The colourway inspiration comes from the beaches of Lyme Regis, where Mary Anning made many of her discoveries. Blue Lias is the name for a particular geologic formation that held many of her major finds, and dates to approximately 195-200 million years ago. The specific colours are meant to invoke the variety of shades of rocks seen on the beaches and in the cliffs of England's Jurassic Coast.

Fibre club will open up again on 1 June, in just about a week, so if you've missed out on the fun and want to join up, keep your eyes peeled for announcements on Twitter and Instagram when the slots go live!

One last shot...

2016 Tour de Fleece colourways: The Giant

There are a number of iconic mountains that have featured heavily in the Tour de France since it's inception. This year's Stage 12 finishes on the top of one of these quintissential peaks: Mont Ventoux.

Mount Ventoux by Jean-Marc Rosier from www.rosier.pro

Although geologically part of the Alps, Mont Ventoux stands quite isolated, rising out of the plains of Provence to a summit of 1,912 meters (6,273 feet) and dominating the local landscape. The top of the mountain is bare of trees and vegetation, inspiring comparisons to the surface of the Moon. This isolation makes it an interesting ecological niche, and there are some species that are unique to this peak.

From the historical side of the race, Mont Ventoux is considered one of the most grueling climbs on the Tour, and it has been included 15 times since 1951. Coming this year at the end of 185 km on Stage 12 and averaging between 6.6 and 10.1% for 11 km, this climb is sure to play a role in determining the final victor of the race. The mountain's challenges came into stark relief in 1967, when British cyclist Tom Simpson died within a half a mile of the summit from heat exhaustion brought on by dehydration, amphetamines and alcohol. Since then, there have been many great battles fought up the slopes of the Giant of Provence, but none have had such a tragic outcome.

The Giant on Merino d'Arles

For this colourway, I wanted to use a gradient to mimic the landscape that the riders pass through on their way from the lavender fields up to the mountain summit. A bright violet gives way to greens before passing into the bare rock hues of the summit. I'm hoping to spin some of this up to work a beautiful half-circle shawl, if I can get some good laceweight.

Don't forget, all these exclusive, limited edition Tour de Fleece colourways will be available in the shop update going live tomorrow morning at 10:00 am. Please note that there may be a bit of delay if the demand for a particular colourway is high, but I have plenty of the base and will get it out to you ASAP!