Rare Breeds, Quarantines and Bras

The Online Weavers Spinners and Dyers Guild have recently completed a spinning workshop using the rare Bowmont fleeces.(See Leigh’s blog entry) Unfortunately for me, Australian Quarantine stopped my package, despite inquiries about regulations beforehand. But I didn’t miss out thanks to Beverley in the UK. She sent me a wonderful sample of spun and dyed yarn. I just had to send something in return so I crocheted an "itty bitty friendship bra". It was a cute way to show off the beauty of the fibres and Beverley’s dyeing.

The other two photos are more of my current work. Scarfs with ridges and wide plain weave selvedges. But sadly thats the end of nice photos for a while as my camera is broken. A compact flash card apparently slots into a pin system and I’ve bent them inside the camera, probably in my haste to get the tricky card in. These weaves are Tencel, silk and wool and are very luscious but have an incredible widthwise shrinkage. This means I have to weave wide to get quite narrow.

Tomorrow I start dyeing again for the next project and I’m using a few new Drimerene K colours. Like Brown! With each colour I make up a shade card using just 1gm of yarn and various strenghts to gauge colour potential. I’m finding that using the same range of colours repeatedly helps me to predict outcomes better. Dyeing makes weaving even more exciting.