Silk Simmer Sauce

With two Fridays off from TAFE and a few Monday mornings off from the Neighbourhood House for Easter, yesterday morning really felt like a holiday. Not that I don't have projects on the go and a long list of chores backed up for the break, but there was time to kick off a few experiments. Here's one: It's a strip of knitted wool-silk simmering away in an enamel pot on my stove. I've been observing how shibori dyeing on knitted wool can bring in some coincidental light felting to make a marvelous structure. I wanted to see how the First Editions wool-silk blend would stand up in the pot. The colour isn't actually part of the experiment, in this case it has come out of the sample--twenty minutes of steady simmering is not recommended care for most luxury fibres! The results are good or not so good depending on your point of view--no felting. That was despite the prolonged simmering followed by a shock of cold water when I tossed the piece into the sink. Good to know when I'm washing that particular fibre, but I guess I'll put something else at the top of the list of things I hope to felt easily.

Temptation

I've still got several skeins of silk and silk-wool combinations to complete for my folio, but I let myself get a little bit side-tracked and here's the result: It is wool and silk (60%-40%), but it's not homework. It's one of the First Editions colour blends. That's the tops you can see on the right of the pic and the yarn I've made from them on the left. These colour blends are so tempting in the packet and then comes the challenge of spinning them up without ending up with a muddy bland soup of colours, which is what tends to happen if the colours are not separated and emphasised somehow. The more colours in the blend, the easier it is to end up with mud. What I've done is strip the tops down to separate off the different colours as much as I could. I spun them on the fine side and then plied with a strand of blue silk. You can see that the resulting yarn is a lot less vibrant than the original tops, but the colours are there in a subtle way. I really do need a little voice to remind me of the risk of mud every time I see these wonderfully alluring packets in the Craft Supply!

Geelong

My friend S and I drove out to Geelong yesterday afternoon for the Scarf Festival. I've taken a few pictures of scarves that intrigued me which I'll post in coming days. The pleasant surprise for the afternoon, though, was the waterfront at dusk. As for spinning, I got through 100g of one of the First Editions merino blends. I stripped the tops down to keep the colours as distinct as I could, and this morning I've navaho plied it. Right now the yarn is soaking in a bucket of warm water to set the twist. It was a case of wanting to do a bit of spinning just for the joy of it after a fairly intense session on Saturday working with Angora, Cashmere and Camel fibre.

A Hug by Any other Name

I wore this little darling on Saturday: I'd had a bad night and felt rather vulnerable. What's more it's been unusually cold the last few mornings. I'm not quite sure what to call it . . . I guess it's a little capelet really. I've knitted it from my handspun merino-silk yarn--one of the First Editions colour blends. The design is a simple stocking stitch circle with garter stitch bands and yarn-over increases. I love it. It's warm and light and soft and easy to wear. It's one of those pieces that is sure to improve my day every time I wear it.

I need to sit down with a ruler, pen and piece of paper, to measure and write down my pattern, so I can provide it to the growing list of people who have asked for it. Like so many of my experiments, I made it up as I went along. Meanwhile it's nice just to enjoy the textile hug.

Thoughts of Chocolate

Ummmm, yum! A blend of wool tops: "dark chocolate" and "nutmeg" from First Editions, spun together with just sprinkling of white. A friend who saw this skein sitting on my table while we were having coffee this morning suggested lamingtons--now that's nice and Australian!