Natural Wool/ Fleece & Spun

 natural

Natural Wool hand spun and coloured fleece, plain spun and ready for click-stick madness. Texture is created by poking bits of fleece ends into the wool as you spin, creating texture and very cool colour combo's.

Or you can just plain brown it

like this 2ply below

or have visions of small greys, like in the

single ply

below

Whatever way you go it is the cheapest and most fun way to create your own yarns, so you can go a little crazy when it comes to knitting something fun.... and warm

Dying your own wool

 

Commercial/hand-spun yarn.

The yarn above is 2plied yarn, which has 1 core of romney sheeps fleece and 1 core of commercially spun wool/mohair yarn. Sometimes I mix my hand-spun stuff with some other commercial bought wool. I'm not too much of a puritan when it comes to mixing and matching, but I do like to stick to the natural  stuff  for spinning...silk, wool, alpaca, etc.

Commercial chemical dyes are another part of being creative with what you spin, and may not be every ones cup of tea, but they sure do give strong bright results. If you get the dying process right you should be left with absolutely NO dye residue left in the water.  

ECO-DYING is the way to go, with a bit of forward planning, and some patience you can open up a whole new world to creating more subtle colours.

FELTING

OK it's not exactly knitting or spinning, but it is playing with wool. I think this is still a cool thing to do.... Make your own felt buttons. Not so difficult to do, minimum tools, very bonding activity, surprising results and slightly risque' in the making!!!. Anyway enough of that, they are supposed to be felt buttons, for your knits.

Spinning Wheels

Picking a new or second-hand wheel is pretty straight forward. If its an Ashford and the seller tells you its in going order, you should expect it to be good to go. A new wheel is always optimal, but if you can't afford that you may be stuck with a wheel that is a bit suspect. Talk to the seller and remember it is always best to buy  a wheel from someone who actually used it for spinning  themselves. They can give you a demo before you hand over the hard cash.

The picture above shows my standard Ashford wheel with some green Polworth fleece. These are great wheels for beginners, and are easy-going, non-fussy machines for spinning most kinds of wool . At the bottom you can see my jersey, which is 1/2 wool and 1/2 alpaca, almost done and dusted.

This Collinson wheel above is a great wheel for beginners because it doesn't matter how fast you peddle it, the wheel just plods along slowly, giving learners plenty of time to do what they have to do. Tucked into the top of the wheel  is some raw fleece, and on the ground is what it looks like once it is spun up. The cone has some commercial yarn on it for plying two strands of wool together.

 

This wheel above is my favourite wheel because it can handle all my phat wool. Or if the mood takes me I can ply heaps of yarn onto the big bobbin. Its called a Tiki Wheel and was made by a chap called Mr Poole.

Want to Run a Work Shop in your area?

WORKSHOPS:  TIME, COSTS  &  PLACE.........

• You arrange it.... Could be your local KINDY ...TOWN HALL SIDE ROOM...Any CHEAP light and warm space.  Alternatively we could meet in your own homes if you have a big covered deck or lounge area.

Cost:$15 per person (plus travel costs of 20cents per.km from Auckland's Bombay or Drury off-ramp)

What do you get for That?: 3 hours tutoring, all the wool or tutoring resources you need to get you spinning and a raffle ticket to win something sweet to keep you using  those click-sticks....and it helps to cover my travel costs.

Minimum of 7 people (just cause I like the old Seasame Street 7 song)

B.Y.O. Knitting needles if you have them. They are pretty cheap from the  op-shops, any yarns, fresh ideas, knitting disasters you want to talk about....Get KEEN and bring along a cheap op-shop find that you want to replicate or pull apart you re-cycler you.

(A small selection of yarns will be made available to get you started for free if you want.)

COME AND HAVE SOME INPUT INTO HOW YOU WANT TO.....                        

• EITHER LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW TO KNIT
• LEARN HOW TO USE A SPINNING WHEEL SO YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN FUNKY WOOL
• SPIN WOOL THAT IS AWSOME QUALITY....AT A FRACTION OF THE COST OF SHOP STUFF
• GET INTO SOME SAFE GRAFFITTI KNITTING
• FIND OUT HOW TO GO ABOUT DESIGNING SOMETHING TO KNIT AND WEAR
• MAKE A KNITTED SCULPTURE FOR HANGING ON YOUR WALL

This blog has been set up to encourage groups of people to get together for creative fun and experimentation with the click sticks. 

Here are some reasons you why might want to get together with other knitters, where ever you are

BECAUSE I WANT TO.....

• Plaster my mailbox/fence line with soft graffiti knits.
• Learn how to knit more than wiggly lines of garter stitch.
• Design knits that I like, and would love to wear, but that I can't afford to buy.
• Buy a fleece of wool, learn how to spin it, and knit my four kids a jersey each for less than 40 bucks.
• Meet other people who want to design, knit and assemble three dimensional fibre artworks so that that the artist within doesn't totally shrivel up and die.

FREE BABY HAT PATTERN

Thanks to you persistent SOULS who have been visiting this site...
I have not gotten around to writing up that bootie pattern yet, so to say sorry I send you this pattern of the baby hat in the picture instead. It is not one I made up, it is from a knitting book I found in the Waiuku Library... and I am writing it from off the top of my head where my memory lives. Those of you who have faith in my recall may want to give it a go. 
Remember to use soft-as wool, silk, cashmere, alpaca or similar so that it doesn't itch, and there by make the Small who ends up wearing it SCREAM. Also i used at least the equivalent to a double knit weight yarn, and because I am a lazy knitter I probably knit it on size 5 or 5.5mm needles.  

 


The pattern goes something like this............
Instructions:
TO MAKE THE RIM:
Cast on 79/99 stitches [79 for little head, 99 for bigger head]. 
Knit in plain stocking stitch [1 row plain, 1 row purl] for several rows [30ish] until the curl of the brim is well and truly looking like a rim on the needles. 
Continue in stocking stitch for 9/10 more rows finishing on a purl row.

TO DECREASE/SHAPE CROWN OF HAT:
With right-side facing, begin the decrease rows by knitting every 9th and 10th stitches together along the row until you get to the end. 
Purl back (wrong side facing), until you get to the end.
Knit every 8th and 9th stitches together along the row until you get to the end.
Purl back (wrong side facing), until you get to the end.
Knit every 7th and 8th stitches together along the row until you get to the end.
Purl back (wrong side facing), until you get to the end.
Knit every 6th and 7th stitches together along the row until you get to the end.
Purl back (wrong side facing), until you get to the end.... etc. etc. etc

Continue this decrease pattern until 9 stitches remain. Keep knitting these last 9 stitches until they measure 6cm's. 

To cast off, continually knit 2together every row. until no stitches remain.

To sew up the seam:

Make sure you sew the rim on the inside of the curl, then pass the needle through the work to continue sewing a tidy seam on the inside of the hat, all the way up to the top of the sticky up stalk bit. Turn through and pop on small's head. 

Go outside and get some fresh air with small.