Thursday, August 23, 2012

Dartmoore fleece processed.


In January this year I joined a group in Auckland and with friends we spend a day dyeing wool according to the Dartmoore project.
You can read about that here;


It took all day and we ended up with 1white fleece of our sheep Anisha, transformed into 48 different dyelots of colours. As you can see below.

A third of that I took home and spun and plied....during the Ravelry Tour the fleece event.
This event saw spinners from all over the world 'compete' in a virtual way, by spinning each day during the Tour the France. Having a rest day during the bikers rest days and spinning something challenging during the challenge days too. Just for the fun of it. We shared our results and chatted  on the ravelry group. There were prizes and giveaways...I must say it was very motivating to get a lot of spinning done! 


I ended up with 4 skeins of beatiful yarn in very lovely colours, plied with a barberpole effect.


Then I picked a simple shawl pattern and knitted a shawl.


I did that during the Ravelympics.
You, guess....On ravelry again; different virtual events could be entered by members for all kind of projects to be done.
Again just for fun and amusement and lots of motivation just by sharing with others the progress made.
I entered the 'Shawl sailing' event. But I did not make it to the finish line in time. Althoug I knitted the bulk of it while watching the Olympics as often as possible. Which coincided with evening times here.


This is the result. I am very happy with how this turned out.


I am a slow knitter and each row counted 300 stitches............Also calving time started on the farm so that did not leave too much time for knitting.
But I did it and finished the shawl by simply knitting till I ran out of wool.
I realy wanted to keep all the colours of the Dartmoor dyed fleece together in one garment.
I am glad I did.



Sunday, August 12, 2012

Transformation.



Can you see the two balls of soft Alpaca I was given in a swap event on Ravelry?



Hardly recogniseable any more after some playing with colour now.



I love it how you can transform with colours.
Isn't it gorgeous, something for a baby girl no doubt.

Try it some time!