When friends' yarns meet

Sarah gave me one of Jon Dunn Ballam's (Easyknits) handspun yarns, and Ingrid (Ingrids funderingar) gave me one of hers. I think they make a perfect couple:

Left Jon's, right Ingrid's

I like the stitch markers, they're like gems in the knitting

When knitting easy things like this hat, I read while knitting. That's Jacey Bogg's Spin Art on the music stand. The tape? It keeps the book open! I would like one of those wire things you can buy for the same purpose, but I never seem to remember when visiting a shop that may have such necessary things.

If I button the cowl I can meet the autumn winds with confidence. The buttons were made by my grandmother a long time ago. I love them! And I do love this hat and cowl. Ingrid's yarn was spun aroung a core of metal wire, so both the hat and the cowl stay in shape besides being warm and soft. I don't know what finer Jon used, but it's also soft and lovely.

Thank you so much, Ingrid and Jon!

Oh wow, we're on Wovember!

I haven't had time to read Wovember for a couple of days, and what do I see when I'm catching up? Me and my friends Malin, Sarah Jane, and Tini!!! Buying wool at Woolfest last year! That photo keeps popping up every now and then in magazines and on internet. And it always makes me want to go back to Cumbria and Lake District.

Look: Marion Woolcott on working with wool woolfest

Next afghan

I want to crochet a flower afghan!

Blanket for dark days

I started crocheting this small blanket in March, and now it's finally finished.

It's so dark, wet and cold in November. A red blanket makes life warmer. I used different sock yarns and a very thin weaving yarn to get a slightly thicker yarn.

Wovember brooches!

I love letters with sheep on the envelope!

Even more I liked what was in this letter: my Wovember brooches.

Estonian Kihnu Skirt left, UK Cotswold Check right.

My winter jacket wanted the Estonian brooch. My autumn and spring light green jacket wanted the Cotswold tweed. You still have a few days time to buy yours, link to Felicity Ford's shop in previous blog post.

Sigh - all my efforts to focus and smile at you were in vain... please imagine a smile :)

Commercial break - Wovember brooch

Have you already bought your brooches? I've had difficulties choosing, but now I've done it. I'll show you when they're here.

Felicity Ford on Etsy

Great postings about harvesting wool going on in the Wovember blog. Link in my blog list.

My son

If you are in Barcelona Nov 8-9, go and see a beautiful dance performance and listen to great music: Slipping Through My Fingers. My son Jukka will be on stage together with Johan Skugge, so this is a performance with live music. Take a look at the lights also!

Sunrise

The sun is rising outside my studio window. It looks fantastic, but I'd rather have a room where you can see what's happening outside also in the winter. It seems to be a difficult problem to cope with. There is an under pressure in our house, and that's something you can't fix by just changing to new windows. I don't know what you have to do, really, and nobody else seems to know either.

So I have lots of lamps in my studio :)

Finull

While waiting for Ingrid to find out about the wool she sent me, I show you a better photo of the wool I talked about in my blog post yesterday. I took staples from different parts of the fleeces, and as you can see the crimp varies a lot. Good Finull should have much crimp, and there are such staples in the fleeces. This wool is soft even as unscoured, it feels strong and nice. I'll tease and mix the different qualities, keeping the colors apart, in order to get a yarn of even quality.

Later: I have now gotten the answer to the question about what wool this is: it's Swedish Finull just like Ingrid (who sent me the wool) said. Conclusion: just like other sheep each individual Finullsheep has several types of wool in it's fleece.

If you have wool from several fleeces you can sort out the different types for different yarns and projects. If you have only one fleece you can mix the different types for a bigger project.

Blue hour and Finull

It didn't look very blue outside yesterday evening, but my camera saw what I didn't see.

More wool, this time from Swedish spinner Ingrid:

Light brown and black Finull. Together with another batch of Finull, still in Sweden, I'll have enough for a bigger project.

Why is shipping so expensive? Does anyone know?

Judith MacKenzie

Some of you have already heard about the fire that destroyd Judith MacKenzie's studio and her looms, wheels, textile samples, books, fibers, furniture, and all the other equipment and tools needed in a textile studio.

There is now a site where you can help: Rebuild Judiths Studio.

I highly value and admire Judith. Her knowledge about spinning, fibers, and textiles is amazing. Just as amazing is her ability to teach and to talk about these fundamental things. I mean, how would our lives be without fibers and textiles? People like Judith MacKenzie has done so much to spread knowledge and skills about textiles, not only how you make the thread textiles are made of, but also about textile history. She is successful in drawing strings to the past and connect people from ancient times with us and our textile world. I love the way she does it while spinning and showing what her skillful hands can do.

                                          My MacKenzie library

We're all happy that Judith was not in the studio when the fire started. It's now clear that the fire started in an electrical panel in the Rainforest Art Centre where Judith's studio was.

Scouring Finnwool

I'm a very happy spinner indeed. Kind spinners keep sending me lovely wool, and now it's autumn, and that means it's shearing time in Scandinavia.

This is what I've been scouring today:

Lovely Finnwool sent to me by a Finnish spinner! It's soft, has lovely crimp, and it's very clean. Still I have to scour it, because there's dirt in it. Scouring Finnwool is delicate work. Don't touch, only look:

It felts. Warm water, detergent, and agitating makes felt out of this wool in a couple of minutes.