Alpaca

Today I've been carding Alpaca fleece that I get from my sister at Cosy Dub Alpacas.

I've got several different colours to do, so I'll be kept quite busy for a while.

Birds Breakfast

Good Morning lovely people.

Fed the birds their breakfast of grated apple and cheese and mixed seed this morning ,oh and chipped off the frozen snow from the fat balls for the Long Tailed Tits that were patiently waiting.
No more snow today at least, although it's very icy under foot.

Bird breakfast on my rustic bird table that my son made me.

This was taken before the snow came.

  
I'd better go and do some spinning, I'll blog about that later.

Thanks for visiting.

JL

Daffodil Dye

When my lovely daffodils had lost their sunny glow, I chopped them up put them in a dyeing pan filled it with water and heated up and simmered for half an hour. It was then left to soak for a couple of days then strained.

Chopped Daffodils soaking after being boiled

Several different wool fibres and throwsters silk waste were put in heated for 30mins then left over night.

The fibres used were Merino, Wensleydale, Alpaca and throwsters silk waste. Each fibre took up the dye differently none of them were mordanted.

I modified some of the fibres to see what happened, although you can't tell from the picture there was some subtle changes in colour.

Merino soaked in copper water gave a bright soft green, Wenslydale + iron water + soda crystals gave a warm soft yellow and the Alpaca was put in after the Wenslydale and gave a lovely warm yellow.

                         This is what it looks like on the bobbin I'm quite pleased with it.




Thanks for visiting

  JL




                               

Spring has almost sprung

Good Morning everyone.

Well it's a bright morning, freezing with snow still on the ground but the Narcissus are still managing to raise their tiny heads through and up towards the light like beacons for spring arriving.

Beanie

Afternoon folk.
It's cold and snowy here today so out with knitting needles.
In the last post I had yarn I wasn't sure what to do with. Well I decided to knit it together with another yarn I'd spun recently. As the weather has reverted back to winter I decided to knit a chunky beanie hat.

CJ from Knitworked Yarns has a lovely blog. She was gifted some of my yarn from her friend at
Coffee Tales can't wait to see what she does with it. Do take a look at there delightful blogs.

Thanks for visiting.
JL

Sofa Day

It's a very dreary grey day today makes you want to stay in drink tea and snuggle up on the sofa with some knitting.

I spun this yarn some time ago.
It's spun from merino, silk and alpaca. The alpaca is from my sister's herd at Cosy Dub Alpacas farm. Seeing as its a sofa day I thought I'd knit it up, but not sure what into yet.

Thanks for visiting.
JL

Helebore

The beautiful elegance of the Helebore in my garden brings inspiration and a smile knowing spring is on it's way.

Avocado Dye.

I been using Avocado as a dye, well I eat the fruit then use the skin and stone. Cut into small pieces and boiled in water.
With a bit of experimentation I got several shades of soft pink on different silk fibres.
Now to spin them into yarn.

JL