Scatterbrained

I have started crocheting scarves. Kind of hard to do in this hot summer weather though. My plan is to have a bunch ready for my market stall come winter. I thought they might be a good thing to sell on a cold winters Sunday morning.

I didn't like this yarn. It is a mohair blend but it looks cheap. It was given to me so I thought I would use it up. I prettied the scarf up with a few vintage buttons and I like the way the buttons look so I expect I'll make a few more like this.

This is this bag after I felted it. I made a little flower to fancy it up a bit.

This wool yarn felts up really well. I still have a bit of this left and I am thinking of crocheting a bag to felt for myself as well. This one is for my market stall also.

Today I am thinking about doing some wet felting. It has been very hot here in Tasmania so playing in buckets of water and with the hose sounds like a good idea.

I am going to make a needle book

I crocheted both the first two yarns I ever spun together and then washed to felt them. They felted lightly. This photo is before the felting. I am thinking now that I may have washed the wool in water that was too hot and shrunk and slightly felted the wool and that is why it wont felt now. It is very easy to spin though and will be useful for art and bags and home accessories.

I have spun a few other yarns since this first effort now and I love it. It is much easier than I thought it would be. I am now washing the yarns to set the spin and rolling them into balls.

This little red and blue bit I am going to use to make a needle book, something I need rather badly.

My first spinning

I made some more felt yesterday using the wool from my sheep that I have had problems felting. It seems the wool from my sheep is too coarse, it is called kemp I think. It is like the kind of wool they use in carpets, low quality coarse fibre. Not surprising because Butter and Sugar were bred for meat, although no one will ever be eating them.

The merino wool felts to it so it can be used in the middle for some felting projects. In this photo you can see how fuzzy and coarse it is.

 

The locks don't felt either. I am not sure what kind of locks they are. I bought them from Etsy ages ago. I love the way the merino wool locks them in but the locks themselves stay true and glossy.

So last night I came to the conclusion that the wool from Butter and Sugar isn't much good for felting. This inspired me to pull out the spinning wheel which was given to me by a neighbour about a year ago. But first I decided to see if their wool would dye. I read that kemp wool doesn't dye very well but I thought I would give it a go.

It worked really well! I used a Wilton food dye. The colour was 'rose' but it turned out more a watermelon. It is really bright and I have pink hands, which I quite like also. I literally boiled the wool, then washed it out in cold water and wrung it and it still did not felt! I have super-wash sheep!!

So while I cooked dinner last night I had Scott set up my spinning wheel for me (he's a mechanic). He remembers his grandmother spinning in Norway so he had a better idea of how to do it than I did. We watched a few You Tube videos and then it was my turn.

I didn't get it right away. It took a few swear words and fumbling but then I was off. My watermelon wool was still wet so I used some navy blue merino wool. I was surprised at how fast it is.

I didn't even try to get it all even and perfect. I am pretty sure it is over spun in places and under-spun in other places but it is yarn and I did it! I think I am supposed to wash it to set it but I don't know how the hell to do that yet. (I'll ask Jenny)

I was so excited I decided to spin some of my watermelon yarn even though it was still wet and it worked too.

I have decided to crochet the two colours together and then wash the result in the washing machine to see how it felts then. I am determined to get that wool to felt :)

An interesting felting mistake

I have been washing, drying and carding the wool from my sheep and I have enough to start felting so I tried felting my own wool for the first time. I used natural wool with a professionally dyed and carded navy blue wool and some green wool locks.

No matter how much I tried I could not get the wool from my sheep to felt. I was beginning to think I had natural superwash sheep!

My conclusion is either 1. I didn't wash my wool enough and there was too much lanolin in it still to felt. 2. I washed the wool in wool wash and that interfered with the felting or 3. I didn't prepare the wool for felting properly. I am going for number 3. I think the wool wasn't layered well enough for the felting to work properly.

In the end, I used some synthetic sheer fabric and sewed it up around the wool like a bag, then sewed a grid like pattern across it and then put it in the washing machine. My washing machine felts really well so I figured if that didn't work my wool wasn't going to felt. This is how it turned out.

It is really thick in places. Probably would be more even if I took more time sewing it together but it was sewn quite loosely so I can pick it apart easily.

 

The navy blue felted as usual, the natural wool felted loosely and the locks felted in places but still have curls and it kind of sits on the top with only part of it felted into the rest.

The natural wool kind of fluffs out of the sides like clouds.

 

I kind of like how it looks. I am not sure what I am going to do with it, maybe make a new camera bag. I am looking forward to experimenting a little more with it and I have joined a felting forum to see if I can get some advise. I'll probably do some more today.