Weaving- honeycomb zip bag

I love weaving, it's my new favourite thing! What I'm about to show you is by far the best thing I have woven. I made a honey comb pattern from a book (I blogged about it in an earlier post. Anyway I just wanted to quickly share a picture. (I will also try nd get back into blogging)
Hope you're having a great day!

I opened an etsy shop!

Thats right I did! Its is Woodland Fibres! I am so excited! It only has one listing my Sunshine batts I made over the last few days!

These drumcarded batts consist of 100% merino wool. Natural merino is mixed with five colours of varying yellow/orange. Its a total of 85 grams to spin!

I think I will do some more drum carding this afternoon so I can list another item! I will also hopefully be listing some mini skeins later in the week!

I finally finished plying my jade yarn which is 50% merino and 50% silk. I will see how many wraps per inch it has after I have washed it but I am hoping it is fingering weight!

Like a Batt out of hell

I decided to blend some coloured fibres with my plain merino tops I had. Two Christmas' ago I got a box of what I think is 10g of merino in a variety of colours. I have used them for needle felting in the past but I thought it was a great idea to blend some into some of my white merino. Its also a great excuse to use my new drum carder.

So I broke off a small amount of white and carded that, I then selected the four colour I wanted to add to spice things up. I thought I would go for a 'My little pony' them, so I chose turquoise, blue, pink and some yellow.

 I put the colours through the carder in an order of white then colour, white then colour etc. but I was only using a little bit of colour.

This is what it looked like after one pass....

But I decided I would do a second pass. For this I broke the batt into six pieces, I made sure I spread the fibres out before I passed the pieces through again. Here is how it looked after the second pass through...

 Much more blended. I have never spun from a batt so I want to make it like the tops I usually spin from. To do this I spilt the batt in a 'W' kind of shape.

I then drafted it all out the make it smoother and so the fibre were all more or less going the same way.

Finally I then wound it into a ball ready for me to spin later on.

SO happy with it! Will do some more next week I think! But before I can spin it I need to ply these!

I LOVE the colour of them and CANNOT wait for the yarn to be finished!!!

All is practice!

Giveaway winner!
Sorry for the delay I went to a friends and stayed there over night. I put the names in a hat and got my Dad to pick one out! So without further ado the winner is:

I will pm you on Ravelry for your address and get it posted off this week!
Thanks to those of you who followed my blog I appreciate it :)

Practice
So I started a project I new would be difficult to weave. I decided to do brooks bouquet throughout the scarf (or whatever it is!). I had decided I didn't like the project and was planning on cutting it off the loom but then I thought all is practice! So I carried on and to be honest I enjoyed weaving it. It didn't finish as well as I had hoped but I think that's because the two different yarns had different tensions. But anyway here is the finished project!

Pimp my ride and other projects

I decided to take a look today at how many Hexipuffs from Tiny Owl Knits Beekeepers quilt pattern I have done. I have accomplished 62!! wooo! I am very slow at this project but I love it because I just pick it up and knit every now and again. Its an inbetween project, it fills lulls and gives me something to do when I'm bored of other things I am doing. I aim to finish this quilt by the time I am 30... so that gives me just under 7 years hehe.

I love the crystal palace mini mochi hexipuffs I think they make it! Since I have just stared this blog I thought I would do a give away! Beekeepers quilt related... Here is the prize: Two mini 10g balls of Opal sock yarn for your beekeepers quilt OR whatever you want to use them for ;)

All you have to do to win these cute mini balls is:

1. Follow my blog
2. Comment on this post (if you have a Ravelry name please state it, this will make it easier for me to contact you if you win)

I will draw the winner on Easter sunday in the morning (UK time)

I showed part of my recent spinning project last time I posted and I thought I would update you! The first picture is of one finished bobbin and the second is the start of the next one. Once I ply them together if the finished product is fingering weight. I have decided to turn it into some mini skeins to sell, I will also make a few hexipuffs out of it for myself :)

On the subject of spinning the picture below the book I bought, if you are a spinner I would seriously recommend buying it!

After last weeks failed weaving for the blanket, I wanted to jump right back on the loom. But I had no appropriate yarn. So in impatient style I set up the loom with yarn I knew would be problematic. I used some Rowan alpaca cotton. Guess what the warp threads stick to each other, so when you put it in the up or down position ALL the threads go up or down!

Any it is all practice, so I decided to try something out from the weavers idea book  ...

I also brought some simple yarn so I can finally and hopefully successfully make the blanket for my car.

I am sure this one will work out and weave beautifully :)

Over spun, over plyed, scratchy

The title describes the alpaca that I have been spinning and finished today. I was having a lot of difficulty getting right this time. I spun two bobbins of alpaca the first one was very uneven. When you look at the second there is a massive improvement.

First bobbin spun

Second better bobbin

I didn't really feel like plying them together when I felt the quality was so different. I decided that it would be more like an art yarn and anyway all spinning for me is good practice as I am only a beginner. I plyed it and it is the most horrible yarn I have ever spun it is hideous to touch, so scratchy!

I asked people on ravelry about this, there are three possible explanations, all of which I think did add to it coming out bad.

1. The tops I used was very soft and fluffy to begin with (so next time I should use a different supplier)
2. Dyed alpaca can also lose some of its quality becoming more rough
3. Over spinning the alpaca can make it stiff and scratchy

I think they definitely all had a part to play (maybe number 3 more than the others!

Anyway after that disappointment I quickly got out my jade merino/silk blend and started spinning it. Now this is so soft and smooth! It also spins like a dream!

I love the colour, its very me!

To add to my week of disappointing projects is my latest weaving project. I got the yarn, it was beautiful, the colours were bright and reminded me of spring and would be perfect for my car! (It was to be my car blanket for the back seats)

So I spent ages setting it up! When I was finally ready to wind the warp up I was tired, I cut corners and messed it up. When winding it on I use a roll of brown paper to separate the layers. My roll doesn't cover the width of my loom so I used two rolls. I didn't fit them in very well.

This was the result, a very unevenly wound warp. Which caused mega problems with tension. The yarn was an issue as well, it was well sticky I guess, it stuck to each other which made weaving very difficult. I wove 4 inches before I decided the warp was to uneven as I wound the blanket on. I tried to fix it but I didnt manage to. So now my loom sits there empty. Until I get the guts to try it again.

Sad times. Hopefully next week will be a better week for my crafting.

A post of firsts

I have been fully distracted for the past few days! I was told to get out the house for a bit and so I went straight to the yarn shop. After ages of mulling I bought three balls of Rowan Lima in colour ways Lima, Bolivia and Machu Picchu. 

I then proceeded to spend the afternoon setting up my loom for a scarf (My first woven scarf). I have enjoyed weaving this scarf so much! My dad said he hasn't seen me look so happy in a long time. So I haved weaved and weaved away this weekend and I tried to do a plaid design (I think I was successful! I love the colours I chose, I am usually a turquoise/blue kind of girl but I went for more drab brown and creams and I LOVE IT. Also Rowan Lima is so so so soft and feels like butter in your fingers. The only thing is that the scarf is a bit small :/

Katie the Mini Schnauzer

 I got my drum carder this weekend too from Classic carders. It is beautifully made and smelt nice :) I got it with a secondary brush and a finishing brush to help pat the fibre down in the carder.

I'm carding the 500g of alpaca fleece I bought. I have 3 different coloured fleeces (I only took a picture of the top fleece) the other two colours are a dark brown and a light brown. It has quite a bit of vegetable matter in it.

I haven't carded that much yet but its a really relaxing thing to do!

I think I also mentioned that I spun some alpaca for the first time the other day! I wasn't very good at it! I need more practice at keeping the thickness consistent. (which I think I have got the hand of with BFL).

Thats all for now! I cant decide what yarn to do for my next weaving project!! I'm thinking Noro but I'm not sure :S If I used Lima again I would need double the yarn to make it double the length (it would be doubly expensive though!). Decisions decisions :)

ANy advise on my new hobbies are welcome, I will take all the advise I can get!