Finished yarn

Last night after posting the blog update, I finished spinning the blue night owl batt and then plied the blue singles and yellow singles together. Here they are separately as a reminder:

I wasn't sure how they would look plied together and although I knew it would be an interesting and textured yarn, I didn't think I would like the colour / effect it would produce. Thankfully, I was wrong - I wasn't a big fan of the yellow/green/ orange singles, but added with the blue, it turned out fantastic!

I've called the yarn "Orange Flecks"

Busy Spinning

Today has been a productive day. First up this morning I had a meeting with Rory's class teacher and Special needs teacher. It went well and was very positive. yay! Then I came home and started on about 4 loads of washing - mainly bedding stuff. In between each load, I got heaps of spinning done. The first thing I had to do was finish plying some purple wool I started a while ago, then put it on the Niddy Noddy (skein maker) (piccy above). The skein is about 190g and will go with the other 196g of the same yarn I spun up at Mapleton Camp back in July. I am hoping to make a nice shawl thing out of it.

After getting the purple yarn off the wheel, I started spinning two of my batts from the Fibre Fun Day. Here is the White one I decided to spin first (turns out that it had a lot of blue in it though, more blue than white):

I then spun this pink/green one:

And this is the result of them plied together - Pretty. I reckon it looks a bit like a "mixed lollie bag".

After I had put the "mixed lollie bag" yarn on the Niddy Noddy, I started to spin the yellow/orange/green batt I made on Wednesday night at night owls. Here it is 1/2 spun up so you can see the batt as well:

Once that was spun into a single thread I put on a new bobbin and started to spin the blue/green batt I also made on Wednesday night. I haven't finished spinning this yet, but here is a pic of it about 1/3 done:

Once the blue is spun, I am thinking of plying it with the yellow to create a very different and textured yarn. It will be interesting to see what it turns out like!

Some knitting photos....

I have completed a couple of items in the last few days.

A cotton washer for someone special (shh... it's a secret!)

Finally finished this beanie for Deb at bowling - Have been working on it for weeks as I got distracted by reading Jane Austen novels :)

Some pretty batts that I made up on Wednesday, made up from some of the leftovers from the fun day. Will make more next week with the rest of the left-overs. The Electric Drum Carder is so much easier and quicker to use than the hand drum carders. Such Fun!!

Fun Day Photos

Colin, Chantelle, & Julie... Along with the mess of fibre on the ground.

Lindel's new hair do!

table of 23 batts. I wish I could have felted them all down into a pretty table-cloth!

Kylie, Lindel, Betsy and Vicki

The three batts I got. Purdy!

I unfortunately did not get any pics of Jacquline, Jen or Annie. Hopefully someone else did and I can copy them later.

Fibre Fun Day 10th October

Yesterday, I had a great day. I invited over some knitting and spinning friends to have a Fibre Fun day - making batts of wool on a couple of small drum carders for spinning, spinning and eating LOTS of yummy food that people had brought. 10 people came!!!! We had an absolutely wonderful time, pooling our stashes of fibre and creating colourful batts.

One of the group was also dyeing skeins of wool in a pot, using mulberries as the dye source. It was going really well until for some reason my portable gas stove that she was using decided to burst into flames! That was a bit of excitement to say the least. Thankfully I had a fire blanket handy in the kitchen that smothered the fire pretty quickly - but it ended her dyeing session and completely ruined the little stove and melted & warped the plastic table it was sitting on. Oh well, what's a decent party without a little fire? LOL

The reason (other than to get together to have fun) I decided to have this fun day, is because yesterday was my "heart day" - the anniversary of my first open heart surgery when I was one. It is like a second little birthday to me, as until then I really didn't live or develop like normal babies. Most years, in celebration of this, Mum makes me a love heart shaped cake. It was so nice, because one of the ladies, on hearing this prior to the day, cooked a love heart shaped cake especially for me. :D I nearly cried in happiness, because my mum is staying with my grandmother at the moment and so wasn't going to be making one for me this year. And better than that, when I cut it, every one sang "happy heart day" (like happy birthday) to me!

So I had a great day, am feeling extremely blessed to have so many wonderful and like minded friends, even if I am completely exhausted today and will probably have to rest a lot for the next few days. It was so worth it.