in love!

I shouldn't have opened the bag, I know - my own fault really! I only wanted to peek in for a second - and put the bag full of fibre away again to spin later.... well, good intentions - they don't work out all that well most of the time! I received a surprise parcel a while ago with two bags, one filled with a cashmere/himalayan sheep mix (veeery soft!) - and the other with a top in silk and wool. uaah... that stuff is addictive, I just had to grab it and start spinning! one hank and a dark black conscience later - tada, the first hank....

the photo doesn't quite show the lustre - the yarn is soft, but cool at the same time. I am going to put it into the last dye bath with delphinium flowers to see if the fibre mix will take up the two colours I achieved on separate batches of wool top and silk - denim blue and mint green!

I also finished the third hank of hedgerow dyed teeswater - I just spin all the different colours as they come - can separate them later, though I don't know yet what I am going to do with it. quite nice as a single too, so far I plied all the teeswater I spun. there is still loads in the bag, mostly yellows and greens....

this is the wool I am going to use for the "seascape" bag for the connaught spinners and weavers - and I decided to use the wave pattern in tunisian crochet, even though the colour changes aren't quite as visible yet in the lighter colours. not sure if I leave it like this though - or throw it into the washing machine afterwards to make the "fabric" stronger. I might use a fabric lining instead, so that the crochet pattern stays visible - assuming that the stitches in crochet change as much as knitted ones, after being felted. the advantage of using a lining would be that I could put in some of that pelmet vilene to give the bag a stronger shaping. when this is finished I am going to put some deco on, freeform crochet for seaweed etc. - and maybe some bright orange fish to pop out:) if it looks halfway decent I will enter the pix into the anniversary challenge for the OLG - though I have to either fix some driftwood to the bag or embroider it with daisies (not the best idea?) - or put on five fish to make sure that I cover two of the four design features set in the guidelines.