Meet Anna! :-)

Anna's alpacas Galax and My

A while ago we got a message from a very friendly knitter from Sweden who - apart from flattering us very much indeed - told us she had alpacas. This really got my attention, as well as the small and beautiful word Sweden ;-) I just love Scandinavia, and I took Swedish classes a while back, and with these things and the fact that Anna described herself as crazy about yarn and knitting we had something to talk about :-) Turns out we are interested in similar things, like mythology, Star Trek and Harry Potter, and there were some long letters going back and forth. I asked her whether she had a blog, for I'd love to follow someone who wrote about alpacas and knitting, even if it was in Swedish (I have forgotten nearly everything from my classes), as long as there were pictures ;-) Anna told me she had actually thought about writing a blog, and now she felt was the time to get going. I promised to tell you about it, so she could get some readers (and at-picture-lookers ;-)) - so here I go:

Please stop by Annas aviga maskor :-)

I've rediscovered google translate in the process, so now the Swedish isn't too much of a problem, and also the google translations turn out to be quite hilarious at times (yeah, it's still a machine, and for that it's pretty good). Just give it a try if you like creative stuff and alpacas!

Anna has also kindly sent me pictures of the cowl she made from our Dark Secrets art yarn, which can be worn in more than one way:

I love the versatility of this piece, and also this was one of the yarns I thought twice about putting in the shop, so naturally I like how it turned out as well :-)
Thank you for sharing, Anna!

The Ruby in the Smoke

I'd like to present one of my latest art yarns, inspired by a book called The Ruby in the Smoke (by Philip Pullman).

The book is the first of a series called The Sally Lockhart Mysteries, and it's about an emancipated young woman in 1872 who solves the case of her father's murder, and the mysteries surrounding it. Apart from the main plot, the books deal with the difficulties of gender roles in Victorian London. Sally Lockhart, whose mother had died when she was very young, and who learned everything she knows from her father, is good at accounting and at shooting pistols. She is strong-minded and brave. I really like her, and have enjoyed the books very much :-)
There's also a movie, with Billie Piper (who some of you might know from Dr. Who) as Sally Lockhart. I think the book is far better, but I also enjoyed the movie.

The yarn was inspired by the title of the book more than its contents. I spun it from black wool/silk blend, soft merino wool of anthracite and ruby red, grey alpaca fibre, and a bit of sparkling angelina. I added unobtrusively sparkling thread and many jewels: flat garnet discs (rubies would have been too expensive), freshwater pearls of a shimmering grey/peacock colour, and sparkling facetted crystal quartz beads. It is elegant and beautiful, and the jewels glitter mysteriously in the dark fibres.
305 m / 68 g, 17-19 wpi (light fingering weight, nearly laceweight). To be listed in the shop soon :-)

Playing Around with a Tweedy Look

I had a little time for carding last week, and I decided to try carding batts for yarns with a tweedy look. Now, strictly speaking, a tweed yarn is a two-ply, but I usually prefer singles. I looked up what else defines a tweed yarn, but that seems to differ (depending on the source of the information), so I just went for what I think of as a tweedy look and I carded and spun up two batts:

Autumn Tweed

Midnight Tweed

I forgot to take a photo of the batt :-/

I really like the texture of the yarns. I chose very soft, grey alpaca and black, rather more rough Icelandic wool, as well as merino wool to provide colour. I love the mixture of rough and soft wool/fibre and the mottled look. Both yarns contain sparkly fibre as well.

Who would have guessed?

I love the ocean. I love ocean-themed yarns. I made another one :-D
I'm still thinking about the name of this one - "High Tide" comes to mind, as well as "Seashells from the Ocean". Well, both are not too creative, I'm afraid. Maybe I'll consult my pillow :-)
This is another one of my yarns I'll find it hard to part with, by the way - but that's the same with all my ocean yarns, come to think of it.



And here's another new one where the title is difficult. Since it's made from pure alpaca fibre (hand dyed by myself) and contains silver flowers, I'm thinking of "Paca ate the Flowers". A bit weird, I know - but so am I ;-)

I hope to be able to list this one before I fall asleep. It's nearly 2 in the night here and I should go to bed... At least it's quiet now - after Germany won the game tonight, people made quite a racket. I did actually watch the game, and I think that was a first. I was never really interested, but somehow I didn't even get bored and I kind of look forward to the next one tomorrow. Strange things happen...

Blur of Colour

Recent attempts to make the white and grey winter world a little more interesting and cheerful. Somehow, I always end up with the same colours after each dyeing session, though. I should work on a wider range ;-)

I've dyed alpaca, mild proteine fibre, Bluefaced Leicester, merino/kid mohair blend, tussah silk, merino/tussah silk blend, some Wensleydale curls and two skeins of handspun Icelandic wool.

Speaking of Icelandic wool, that stuff is amazing!
When I went to Iceland in 2008, I bought a shawl made from local wool which is not nearly as soft as merino or BFL, but amazingly warm! And I do love the texture, so I wear the shawl a lot - but it's really more a broad scarf than a shawl and I wanted something larger, so when one of my favourite suppliers added Icelandic wool to his shop I couldn't stop myself and just HAD to buy some ;-) I got white and (natural) black varieties and after I spun a wonderful black yarn for the shop (which has already been sold), I sat down to spin a larger amount for myself. It's about 800 m of laceweight yarn, now dyed dark green - and now I have to decide on a pattern.
I had also brought some raw wool home when I returned from Iceland, and turned some of it into a scarf and wrist warmers for winter excavations (did I mention that stuff was warm?!) which have proven the fibre to be the perfect material. I need to take photos, I always forget...

Tour de Fleece - we're on!

Yes, I know, I know. We're one day late. But well, we had to buy some furniture to better stash our stash, and it had to be yesterday! So, sadly, there was no time for spinning this Saturday.

But: We now joined the Tour de Fleece! "Twisted" from Weird&Twisted aka TrashQueen aka Christine aka me joined three teams on Ravelry: Team Germany, Team Twitter (as I'm a fanatic twitterer), and, of course, Breakaways, the art yarn team!

And today, I tried to make up for missing the first day of the tour. So here are my yarns!






Yes, you've seen correctly: This is another glow-in-the-dark yarn! It's a corespun one, with a fluorescent thread in the center, luxury fibers like cashmere, merino wool and bamboo fluffily wrapped around it! It's so light and soft! :-)

And: There are these big, beautiful vintage lace blossoms, spun right into the yarn. I really like how it turned out!




This is a rather punky one. Black alpaca, combined with merino wool in rosé, dark red, violet and some bamboo in shiny white - and tons of sequins in black and red!

So, that were the first two yarns for the Tour de Fleece. Stay tuned for LOTS more! :-)

Skull-y

Work in progress:
carded batts of alpaca, silk, linen/flax, angelina, corespun with added red glass beads and bone skulls.



I LOVE it! This will be another yarn I'll have problems to part with...

Spring? I think so!

I've finally spotted the first flowers: a tiny patch of violets in the park behind our flat. So spring seems to be getting here at last! I've been waiting very impatiently, spinning spring yarns in order to attract that wonderful season and today I had coffee outside for the first time this year. It was great, and I also got some knitting done - but I have to keep this a secret for now, since the object will be a birthday present and I am not sure whether the person in question reads this blog...

We've been quite busy lately, but - sadly - not yarn-wise, but in our life "beyond yarn". Only during the last days we have finally got around to some serious spinning, a few results of which can already be seen and purchased in our shop.
I, for one, have rediscovered thread-plying once again. I hadn't done that for quite some time and now I can't get enough. I am very partial to alpaca fibre at the moment, which is great for said technique - so you might see a great deal t of wavy alpaca yarns in the near future :-) (Two have already been uploaded)

I've also purchased some spring yarn stuff, for further celebrating my favourite season.

And finally, I have been reminded of our shop anniversary. I had been looking forward to that for a while now, and obviously I forgot all about it. Not until I saw this posting on Authentic Fiction today did I realize that we've been on etsy for more than a year. Happy Birthday to us - kind of ;-) We've registered on March 3rd, had trouble registering our credit card (being from Germany doesn't make that easy!) and finally opened the shop on (I think) March 23rd. We sold our first yarn on Arpil 6th, so maybe we should at least celebrate that :-)

I do hope we will be able to spin a lot more, now - I for my part really missed it!

Fresh Colours

I have been busy dyeing once again :-) Some of the colours are too bright for my taste, but they will make lovely spring yarns. I absolutely love how the colour turned out on the handspun cashmere (right side, front), it's perfect for me.
Click the picture to see which fibres I've dyed.


I have also finished the triangluar shawl, in fact, it took me only two days and I am very happy with it - but I haven't been able to take good pictures, yet. I will try to take some on the weekend.

Lots of new stuff

We have to admit there hasn't been much new stuff lately, neither here nor in our art yarn shop on Etsy. We have both been busy with work and studies and there wasn't much time for crafty things - but we'll do our best to change that. In fact, we had a nice get-together yesterday - a whole day of spinning and wire bending and knitting :-) Snowberry&Lime delivered some wonderful new fibre, like Cashmere and Gotland lambs wool, and also some very strange fibre, like this glittering fleece of merino wool and sparkling nylon fibre:



I had to test this immediately, and I also spun the Gotland lambs wool and some alpaca-silk yarn during the meeting:


The glittering stuff really looks like artificial turf (though it is a lot softer, thank goodness ;-)), so that's what I will call the yarn. I also started spinning some cashmere last night, which is incredibly soft. Maybe I'll dye the yarn after spinning, but I still have to decide about the colour.

And then there is my new favourite yarn, the first one I spun on my new Ashford Traditional (which I got for Christmas and still haven't told you about - shame on me!) WITH the new jumbo flyer (which I should have gotten for Christmas, as well, but which I only received a few days ago) and the only one (at the moment) I think I really can't part with: Dark Atlantis


It has been spun from black merino, mixed together with hand dyed lambs wool of shades of greenish blue, blueish green and turquoise (hard to describe, really) and glittering fibre. There are some hand crafted spirals and lots of facetted glass beads in it and it sparkles and is dark yet a little colourful and I really think I have to keep this one for myself ;-)

Another thing I made for myself is a new orifice hook for my new spinning wheel. It's the second one I made, since the first one was rather crappy, and I really like how it turned out:


As you can see, I am really into wire bending at the moment. It started with some harmless stitch markers for the crafts fair last year - and then I had to buy a book or two and some tools and try to do other stuff - and now... well, we've already opened another shop and let's just say that stitch markers won't be the only wiry things in there ;-)

It's amazing...

...how differently various fibres can smell and feel, especially when they are wet. I've just washed my latest 7 yarns and was once again amazed at how e.g. alpaca feels and smells in comparison with silk. Silk does smell a bit fishy and feels somewhat slimy or slippery, while alpaca smells... well, I can't even describe it; I just like it :-) Smells like warm animal - in a positive way.
I don't know if this is even interesting to anyone, but never mind ;-)

Oh - I finished my set of needles mentioned earlier, btw.

Oh, my granny would be SO proud!

Yes, I bet she would, because she's a master knitter for sure and always wanted me to knit. And I hated it, I really did - I was so slow, and my knitting was uneven and clumsy.

I recently spun this gorgeous yarn, "Happy Alpaca, Yummy Lime", and it was such a pretty one, extremely soft and all, I had to convince myself to put it in our shop for sale. But I thought that I'm such a bad knitter, it would be a waste...
And what did I do? I spun another big fat skein of this gorgeous yarn for me to keep! :-D And I already started to knit it into a fluffy neck cuff!

Ah, granny would be so proud! Even though I'm processing very, very slowly and have my problems knitting...

Spinning on my Ashford Traditional

is pure joy! It's almost noiseless, it's so smooth and... Ah, I'm in love! :)

Here you can see me spinning the latest addition to the Weird&Twisted Shop, "Happy Alpaca, Yummy Lime". Snowberrylime was in Switzerland some weeks ago and brought some beautiful alpaca fleece. Yesterday I washed and cleaned it, and today I spun a bit of it with some green and yellow wool. The structure of the hand-washed fleece was so gorgeous I didn't want to ruin it by forcing it into a too even thread - so I tried some slubs. I think it looks really beautiful, and I loooove the soft touch!

You may ask: How did she take that photograph... she can't have a third hand, can she? Well, I could, I guess, but I don't. ;-) Even though I spent my last weekend playing the RPG "Call of Cthulhu", I'm not some creepy mythos creature with too many limbs! I just used the automatic release and seized the camera under my chin, that's the whole trick.
Not very comfortable, but I prefer that to being a mythos creature. ;-)