Sunday 28 June 2009

Wheat and honey handspun yarn and its inspiration

Today I will share one of my favourite, most random, places of inspiration.

Are you ready for this?

Ok: When spinning, I use a simple woolen 'leader thread' (the thread which is attached to the bobbin and onto which the first bit of the yarn is spun/attached). Whenever I take a yarn off the bobbin there is usually a little bit of fibre left on the leader thread. Some people cut these fibres off to have a clean leader thread again.... myself I like to leave it and let a whole bunch of fibre naturally accumulate around the end. I find the textures and colours very intrigueing!
Well, and on my current bobbin I kept seeing golden soy silk wrapped around a tweedy yellow yarn - and I liked it!

Yesterday I started recreating the look and here is 'wheat and honey' a respect-demanding bulky 2ply yarn handspun from golden soy silk and a tweedy batt consisting of yellow New Zealand wool and colourful cotton nepps (little 'freckles', if you will). The second picture shows the original inspiration.

What are you inspired by?

Wednesday 24 June 2009

'Earth Goddess' handspun yarn WIP

My latest yarn is called Earth Goddess and features just about everything nice and brown. Oh, except, I ended up not using the ricrac, as it would have made the yarn too stiff. But I did use hand dyed soft wool, sequins, embroidered cotton fabric, Angelina (sparkle) and a beautiful linen/cotton tweedy thread to ply. I also used some Tunesian wool and Karakul wool, which are both rougher wools, but with a very intrigueing range of colours.


Friday 19 June 2009

Knit.1 magazine features Snowberry & Lime yarn!

Look out for the current issue of knit.1 magazine, the young sibling publication of Vogue knitting. On page 13 you will find a selection of eco-friendly yarns, including my handspun soy silk yarn! The photograph is so sweet, with all the balls of gorgeous yarn - I was so happy to have my yarn in this collection! There are also some really nice patterns in there, including a 50s style yellow lace top I am thinking about knitting.... it's definitely worth checking out.