hangs by a thread

Further notes on Arapawa sheep and their fleece

2012-01-19T17:12:00.061+13:00

In discussing these sheep and their qualities with other people, including other hand spinners I discovered there are two discordant opinions about the fibre from ‘don’t bother spinning the fleece which is always rubbish’ to ‘this is a really interesting fibre and feels like merino’.

carded batts and handspun yarn

ewe and lamb from Warwickz farm

From further reviewing other Arapawa fleeces from different sources I can begin to see why there might be such a divergence. The fleeces can have some variation from each animal and even within a single fleece. It is short too. Washing it makes the staples appear even shorter. This isn’t a problem if you are prepared to change your hand movements a little to accommodate and spin finer. The fleeces I have are easier to prepare for spinning than a merino fleece but some of the same issues arise. For example once the grease is removed the staples are light and curl around making the fibre look disorganised. Care is required not to card neps into the fibre. Over carding causes these small noils throughout the batt. In fact I have found it difficult to make an absolutely smooth preparation without hand combing this fibre. This is not really a problem as it just creates a yarn with a little more texture, ‘tweediness’ and a rustic look to it. The wool does puffs up and fills the carding surface. There are also variations in colour across the fleece so the yarns have a heathered appearance which I find really pleasant too. Whilst some information sources suggest the Arapawa fleece can be as low as 11 microns my fleeces feel like they have a wide micron variation in even a single fleece with different diameter fibre present sprinkled throughout the fleece. Some are more uniform than others.

handwoven fabric from the arapawa fleece shown

In hand combing some fleece (which is the only way to obtain a smooth preparation with this fibre) I pondered on whether Arapawa had reverted back to a primitive fleece which would explain the big variation in micron throughout the fleeces.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled off the top from the stationary comb to find I had separated two shades of the grey. The steel grey colour was in the longest fibre coming off first followed by the shorter brown-grey ones. This is not that unusual as you can do this with lamb fleeces from Gotland sheep who change colour from black to grey after a few weeks of life. However the shorter brown grey fibres were softer and felt more merino-like than the longer grey ones. Whilst the difference in feel is not as obvious as an Icelandic sheep’s two fibre types, the length of isolation and number of generations of sheep living alone on the island could have encouraged these sheep to grow a softer warmer undercoat with the longer, stronger fibres providing some protection from the weather as in Scottish Hebridian sheep. I would need to sample many more fleeces to test this theory. To spin a smooth yarn without the variations in colour contrasting too much in the yarn (unless desired) I recarded the top now free of any noils on the drumcarder.

cosy handspun hat from carded and spun fleece

Why bother to spin such a variable fibre you may ask?

Because they are extraordinary sheep. They have survived living feral for over 100 years, no easy task for a domesticated animal. They have been hunted almost to extinction. They are still shot today for the trophy of a fine pair of horns. Although game farming has also helped the breed’s survival. They are a rare genetic pool of traits (such as possibly a higher tolerance to fly strike) desirable but lost in modern sheep and they represent a living history of New Zealand’s past. The properties in their fleece are unusual and interesting to spin. Being so few in number it is a treat to handle fibre that is generally unknown and scarce.

Asking for and using fibre from rare breeds of sheep encourages people to keep breeding these sheep.

A big thank you to Elaine and Chris from Warwickz Farm near Christchurch for sending me the beautiful photos of their sheep. They have accommodation if you want to stay on the farm.

Elaine writes that her rams are all good natured and handle well in the yards but can jump if ‘they feel they need to’. I think ‘Wedge’ is just gorgeous with his impressive horns.

The cloth samples in the photos need to be felt to appreciate the bouncy elasticity of the fibre. Overdyed in the indigo vat it developed a lovely dark blue tweedy shade. This is hand combed top spun for warp thread for my loom.

Different weaving patterns show off the bounce in the fibre

The cloth samples will be crossing to the North Island and back to the sheep owner from whence the fibre came from. I’m looking forward to putting more from these sheep onto my loom.
NB part 1 can be found here.http://doespins.blogspot.com/2010/12/arapawa-sheep.html

Otepopo Fibre Mill

2011-12-15T12:56:00.000+13:00

A few people have remarked that my work space(s) resemble a ‘mini’ mill. My daughter claims this applies to the whole house. The ‘Otepopo Mill’ has actually been here for a while. The mill worker keeps long and unsociable hours. The pay rate is poor but the conditions aren’t bad and she can help herself from the fridge anytime.
The aspects are pleasant with plenty of birdlife and some feline company.

View from the dyehouse
It is a spinning, dyeing and weaving mill predominantly for alpaca, llama, wool and silk fibres.
Here is a little guided tour:-

The Woolroom
Raw fibres purchased from local breeders and growers go into the raw materials store at the back of the garden, which happens to be the 1960’s typical kiwi wooden sleepout.

Fibre soaking in the washtub

From here it visits the small laundry area next to the kitchen for washing before laying on racks to dry on our covered deck area (which is also the skein winding area in good weather and skein drying area in bad weather).
The mill sublets the laundry to other house ‘occupants’ who sometime express dissatisfaction with the appearance of their clean clothes (added alpaca fibres create fluffy shirts!)

the carding machine
Once the fibre is dry it goes into the carding department for picking (opening) and drum carding on the mill’s very modern electric carder. Sometimes the fibres are then hand combed if a really smooth preparation is desired. The fibres may be dyed after the washing process if blended colour batts are required. The mill blends these colours to specific colour recipes recorded in a handmade book (made by the Oamaru Bookbinder).

Rustic carding room and dyehouse

colour diary
From there the fibres continue to the spinning room (which is fairly mobile depending on where the spinning operator happens to have her wheel). The fibre is elongated and twisted in the old fashioned way using pedal power. The spinner has a number of machines available to her including an electric spinner mostly used for plying when her legs feel particularly tired or if she has run out of empty bobbins on the other wheels.
After 25 years practice she can maintain quite good speed and precision. She has worn out the flyer of one wheel.

Once spun and plied the yarn is skeined from the bobbins.

a basket of suri yarns

The fibres have a second trip to the laundry for a warm gentle hand wash before either reskeining for sale or moving onto the weaving department. Prior to this they may be dyed either with natural plant dyes or synthetic wool dyes.

box of natural dyed alpaca yarns

mordanting yarn

Natural dyeing involves some preparation before dye days as the mill worker needs to collect and chop, steep and simmer raw plant material such as gum leaves, onion skins or flax and also mordant the yarns prior to dyeing. Purchased extracts for the brighter reds, blues and yellows do make her life a little easier. She will spend some time in the dye lab testing plant colours and tweaking her dye recipes since each year the conditions the plants were grown in will affect the colour outcome.
Although dyeing with synthetic dyes is quicker, her methods of applying colour to the skeins requires patience and careful planning.

Some locally spun alpaca (from a much bigger mill) is brought in to dye.
The mill has a casual worker who for the price of some lunch is a dab hand with the electric skeiner and together they can dye10 - 15 kilos of yarn in a day.
Whichever method is used, once dyed the yarns go back to the laundry for washing, drying and finally reskeining. This may be followed by reballing for the weaving department or labeling for the store, website, market etc.

Ashford Jack loom

Mecchia 8 shaft Dobby
Once in the weaving department the yarns are wound onto shuttles and also onto the looms’ back beams for weaving into shawls, wraps, scarves and fabric lengths.
The mill does some custom work.
Three floor looms are used which can create a myriad of different fabric options.
A whole day may be spent warping just one of them. The biggest flying shuttle loom lives in The Oamaru Textile Emporium and I will take you on a virtual tour of that premises later in the blog.

The Mecchia flying shuttle loom at Tote.

Once fabric comes off the loom it goes back to the laundry for washing. Before washing any skips are mended, fabric is ‘crabbed’, fringes are twisted, and ends are darned in.
Once washed fabric is pressed.

Not bad for a part time mill worker and her mill cat.

Tweed fabric samples

2011-10-22T20:13:00.001+13:00

This sample is sett at 16 ends per 2.5cms and I think it could even benefit from being set at 20ends. The yarns are hand dyed and handspun yarns woven in a broken herringbone twill.

I tried a few different coloured wefts. I like how the tweediness of the yarns is apparent in this fabric.

I also did some natural dyeing today. Visit my other blog for the results.
One day I will make a tweed fabric/yarns from scratch using natural dyes instead of the acid dyes, need to get the colours really saturated first.

Alpaca yarns

2011-09-15T16:19:00.008+12:00

Ribbon

About five years ago Andy an alpaca breeder from Flagstaff alpacas in Dunedin started taking his cream alpaca fibre down to Milton Spinning mill to get made into yarns for knitters. Mostly spun into 8ply with some machine knitting weight yarn.
I bought some of the undyed yarn from that original batch and began dyeing it. The yarn took the colour beautifully and retained its shine and soft handle. Rosehip

So we have created several repeatable alpaca yarn weights such as the 4ply, 8ply and blends and now dye the colours in 1-1.6kilo dye lots. You will see that code numbers are beginning to appear on our labels so that we can record the individual dyelots. This makes life easier when people have run short of a yarn in a specific colour.
Every colourway has a name. Some of the early colourways are no-longer produced. In the first year of production the colours were not recorded whereas now I have a lot more repeatable colours which are carefully documented.
I will discuss the problems of exact colour matching and repeatability in another blogpost.

Colours I enjoy dyeing include ‘The Wild’ series with ‘wild rice’ and ‘glacier’ being the first in the series. Wild Rice Glacier

‘Poison’ came about because the colours reminded me of ‘deadly nightshade’ flowers and ‘foxgloves’ which both can do you harm if ingested. Poison is one of the more complex colourways to achieve as the colours are muted by mixing carefully, yet I didn’t want to end up with too much brown. Poison

‘Flamenco’ and ‘all that jazz’ are exuberant reds and pinks. When these go into the dyebath I have to be careful of the next colourway as they always leave a little residue of red somewhere in the pans. They always take the longest to ‘cook’ too. I try to get the dye liquid to go completely clear after each dyebath so that I can reuse the hot water for the next colourway.

Flamenco

Stipple above reflects my love for blue and a deep cedar brown.

Lookout in my blog for a peep into my dye studio and a dye day.

tweed yarns from scratch

2011-08-27T19:50:00.013+12:00

I love working with these yarns but they are very time-consuming to make. The spinning is a real pleasure as the fibres are so well carded in the blending process.
To repeat a yarn I weigh out the fibre colours to a recipe which is recorded in my book with a sample of the yarn. So today I'm repeating a yarn colour.

The fibres are predyed New Zealand Romney colours from Tally ho carding, with white. The yarn has a dominant lilac shade but with smaller amounts of bright contrasts such as raspberry pink and jade.

Then I handmix the clumps of colour roughly. The carder is going to do all the work of blending, but mixing at this stage cuts down the number of passes needed.

The fibres are spread in a thin film on the tray so I can still see the metal base through them.

I use the carder at full speed but don't let clumps of fibre through as that can jam the drums and damage the pins.

First pass you can see the colours still as quite distinct areas and the batt below is still uneven in colour.

I do sometimes spin my batts at this stage and it does make a very pretty yarn with small shots of the individual colours.

So the batts are stripped down into smaller pieces and fed back into the carder for a second carding. Sometimes a third mixing and carding is required.

The finished batts with yarn spun from a previous carding session. The spun yarn always makes the colour appear darker so these batts will spin into a virtually identical yarn. Since I need about a kilo of this yarn for my weaving I have a few more batts to mix and spin.

Here's another colourway blended twice and ready to spin.

A rare event and a ‘waulked’ tweed fabric sample.

2011-08-02T18:22:00.009+12:00

Finished fabric.

It began with a few snow flakes.

Last week was different weather wise, beginning on Sunday afternoon with a front that brought a few flakes of snow which gradually became flurries. This is a very unusual event for Oamaru as we are at sea level. Since I live 20 minutes away from the town I left the shop early when the snow began falling in earnest.

By the early evening the whole landscape had changed. In 13 years of living here I haven’t seen this much snow on the ground. So fearful that it would be gone by morning we went out in the dark to throw a few snowballs and enjoy the still quietness of the snow falling.

We did get into work the next morning although it took more than double the time and we were very glad to have the 4 wheel drive. The roads were very empty and also icy so it was a slow cautious drive. By the afternoon it had nearly all turned to a wet slush. Good news for those few early lambs though who have enjoyed warm sunny days following the event. Icy empty road at 8.00 am in the morning.

I also ‘wauked’ my handspun tweed sampler. This involved washing, rinsing, squeezing, wringing, and generally pressing, squishing and agitating the fabric carefully in my case by hand until it closed up, began to develop a slightly fluffy surface (raised nap) and generally felt like a more substantial piece of cloth. I periodically pulled the edges to keep the selvages straight.
The broken twill pattern becomes less obvious and more intergrated into the colours if you compare it with the piece still on the loom. Before - fabric still on loom.

Finally I pressed the fabric firmly with a dry iron to compress it and bring back a little of the sheen. I did this hard press on both sides 3 times and it still wouldn’t do it any harm to have a steam press prior to tailoring. Now to choose which colour combination I’m going to use for the yardage. Waulking fabric by hand or foot on your own is such a lengthy process. Yet there is no company here in NZ that I know of, who could do some fabric for me. Oamaru ironically had a full woollen spinning and weaving and processing mill which produced all sorts of fabrics, established in the late 1880’s. The mill still makes yarns for the carpet industry. But production of fabrics has long gone.

Next time I’ll blog about how I developed the colours by mixing different amounts of pre dyed fibre together before spinning. The fibres in this fabric are mostly 60% New Zealand Romney and 30% alpaca. In the photo the yarns show the sheen of even as little as 30% alpaca.
Romney sheep are a main line breed here important for the meat and breeding industry with a long history and are thoroughly adapted to cope with climate. They are spread throughout NZ. The fibre has lost some popularity with handspinners over the last 10 years but it is such a versatile and easy fibre to prepare and spin. Not overly greasy to wash, or delicate, with good length staple. I recommend it for beginners to cut their spinning teeth. It suits the type of carding cloth most of the NZ commercial craft carding companies have on their machines and so you can purchase some good prepared sliver for a reasonable price if you don’t want all the work of washing, carding etc yourself.
Handspun yarns used in the fabric.

In fact my next fabric utilises Romney sliver from Tally ho carding here in Otago. I’m using their basic predyed colours with a few hand dyed ones of my own which saves me a little time in what is a lengthy process.
The more I weave with my own yarns the less I’m attracted by commercial threads. I can custom the threads and colours so precisely to my fabric design ideas. So any company out there considering making a really mini mechanized mill to fit a handspinners pocket, that won’t cost me $NZ 100,000, plus? Something with a couple of spindles maybe? I’m sure there would be a market for it. I want the next step up from handspinning but not quite the size of a mini mill. Any ideas?

Woven Tweed sampler

2011-07-10T17:10:00.007+12:00

My recent project is this 8 shaft tweed fabric sampler using handspun yarns where the fibre is dyed first and blended to achieve subtle colouring. My son calls this yarn a heather in the carpet yarn dyeing/spinning trade. Its requires a lot of experimenting and sampling to get colours that meld together in the yarn but still have enough value differences to keep them interesting.

Each of the shades is woven as a block across the weft and warp. I like several of the colourways, so will have to decide which one or two I'm going to use in the final cloth.

Here's a closeup of the pattern. A broken twill which appears as an embossed texture across the warp. The sunshine in the room has washed out the colours in the photos, they are a little deeper in real life.

A recent trip to Milton and we went back over the North East Valley road. You look down on the beautiful harbour and Port Chalmers where we lived for a couple of years.
The water was like a mirror, perfect for a photo or two.

Then on to the Qualityarns spinning mill housed in the old Bruce Woollen mill. Picked up some fibre and weaving yarns. Its a great shop and the yarns are so reasonably priced. This is the mill that spins all the Flagstaff alpaca yarns I get to dye and play with. They do a great job so the long wait sometimes is worth it.

Finished fabric

2011-06-04T21:30:00.003+12:00

Here's the handspun woven gotland fabric straight off the loom. It was so pleasurable to weave.
No threads broke in the warp and the tension was good right to the end of the weaving. t's not the first handspun warp I've put on the loom. But its always good when they behave themselves.
So I washed it in hot soapy water and fulled it very slightly. I didn't want the fabric to be too dense. It has a lovely sheen from the fibres.
For now it will be put away as I have several other things I need to get on with weaving and fibre wise. But it's time will come to be something special.

Tweed

2011-04-27T15:02:00.009+12:00

On the Jack loom at the moment is a warp of handspun Gotland from Hamish Black's fleeces in a herringbone twill. The warp is set at 12DPI since the yarns have a little more 'character' than their commercial counterpart. These were relatively fine fleeces which I drum carded first.
I set the 12 selvage threads double through the reed each side which aids tidy edges. I'm using an end-feed shuttle which also helps too. Although this fabric is going to be cut into and sewn it's a lot easier to weave if the edges stay neat and tidy. The warp stripes are random. The weft yarn was a light blending of dark and light grey fleece so shades of the colours appear across the weft.One of Hamish's beautiful ewes borrowed from Hamish's website. More of his sheep photos here.

A while ago I dyed some carded batts and decided to blend the fibres recently into a tweed yarn by breaking up the batts and thoroughly blending them as above.

The first trip through the carder still left the batt quite streaky.
See lines of colour, which would still make an interesting yarn when spun. But an evenly tweedy yarn needs at least one more card, or possibly more.
Second batts show a more even spread of colour. The Pat Green carder cards more efficiently than my other drumcarder which would require extra trips through to reach this stage.

Some of the finished yarns, the photo doesn't truly reflect the seperate colours in the yarns.
The third skein from the left is spun after one carding.
To avoid muddy colours which are easy to achieve with blending but usually not desirable, I started with bright saturated colours and toned down where necessary with a small quantity of natural brown or black fleece.

L is for Llamas

2011-04-04T21:45:00.005+12:00

Last month I spent a weekend at Ann Thompson's Watford Grange Llamas in Christchurch teaching fibre courses. The only photos I've taken are of the lovely llamas in the sunshine.
These suggested I might like to use their fleeces. Note the additional decoration.

Llamas come in array of patterns and colours. Most are multicoloured with spots, patches and pinto/appaloosa markings.
It was so nice to stand amongst them as they went about their daily business.
This little guy is called 'the statesman', he has a wonderful presence. Curious like all babies, but also well....'stately' and bold. Those stunning markings help too.
It was a well attended weekend despite being so close in time to the major earthquake.
People were glad to talk about their animals and fibre, although I know a couple had lost belongings and even their homes.

Saori style weaving with new weavers in Oamaru.

2011-01-24T18:03:00.005+13:00

It was such a pleasure teaching this class of brand new weavers yesterday as part of the Sustainable Skills Summer School which was held in Oamaru over the last 9 days.
They really enjoyed weaving creatively and developing their own colour ‘stories’ in their fabric using lots of different threads from silk, wool, alpaca, mohair and metallics.
They firstly learnt to warp the rigid heddle looms using a direct method of warping and changing their colours as they went along.
Many of the yarns I provided were hand dyed and some handspun.
These new weavers really embraced the Saori method of interlocking two weft threads to create undulating colours and shapes. They experimented with beating lightly to strongly, producing patterns that showed off the weft or the warp colours.
Their pieces express the individuality of each weaver. The colourways were inspiring. There is a time in the day (usually after lunch) when there is tranquility and peaceful activity with purpose. This happened in this class too, as people became confident in their own ability to weave and make design decisions, and let themselves enjoy the act of yarn and shuttle running through their hands and softly beating the thread into place. It was a very enjoyable day.
I also held a handspinning day and a dye day during the week. One person came to all three, bringing her sister to the weaving class.

The Oamaru Transition Town group has done a great job organising this summer school bringing in tutors who offered classes as diverse as seed collecting, bicycle maintenance, book binding, rag rug hooking, a Victorian banquet, mask making and many more.
The classes were generally well attended and the support for the idea has been great with good publicity during the week from the local press.
I look forward to being a part of this again in the future.

My studio/shed (after preparing for 3 classes) is now extremely messy with baskets of stuff spilling out every where. Since it’s not very large anyway, storage is always a bit of a problem. So some tidying and filing (sigh) is planned for the next few evenings.
I don’t know if other tutors have this problem, but I carefully get ready for my classes by listing and packing each box systematically but the stuff gets a big dose of the ‘tangle fairy’ for its return and I can’t find anything. All the above classes were very heavy on bringing lots of my own equipment and supplies. I dream of a big studio where I can hold my classes without
having to carry heavy boxes around.

Saori style for Sophie

Arapawa Sheep.

2010-12-20T19:45:00.005+13:00

Photo Betty Rowe from Rare Breeds website

New Zealand has a variety of now rare feral sheep such as Pitt island, Chatham, Arapawa, Hokanui, and several others originating from domesticated sheep left on some of the islands or escaped to remote parts of the country in the 1800’s. Many of these seem to have had a merino background, plus probably genetics from other sheep breeds as well brought over to this country.
Over the sheep generations, the hardy survivors shrank in size, reverted back to coloured wool, became cautious as they were hunted by man, and browsed on whatever vegetation was available. Their story is remarkable in that their evolution has gone backwards from domestication to a primitive breed type surviving on their own.
The Arapawa sheep numbered about 20 when it was saved from total eradication from the island by a lady from Picton called Betty Rowe who set up a sanctuary in the 1970’s to preserve the tiny gene pool. The offspring from these few sheep now number over 1,000 and are spread around NZ. Photo by Betty Rowe from Rare Breeds website

There are mixed views on the quality of the fleece. These sheep will self shed their fibre although generally breeders do shear their sheep. From the small pile of fleeces I have, there is a variety of qualities in even a single fleece. The raw greasy fleece was relatively uninspiring to look at, and mine needed further skirting and sorting. It was softer than I expected. Photo Trotter/McCulloch from Rare Breeds website
Although the sheep look brown in the photos there is no moorit colouring and the fibre is predominantly dark with sun bleached tips (giving it a brown cast), but some of the fleece is patched and spotted with light coloured fibre. The lamb fleeces are the darkest.
Here are the characteristics I’ve observed in my fleeces:-

1. Variable length, with the longest staples being up to 8cms, although most are much shorter. Disorganised staples. These fleeces have been sheared from the animals so are complete although quite lightweight.
2. Colour is predominantly dark brown/grey although it appears dark brown in the grease (the lamb’s fibre were probably nearly black) with some white patches on some of the fleeces. The tips are faded to caramel and tan.
3. Relatively greasy but the wax washed out easily in a hot wash with soap flakes.
4. The clean fibre bulked up when dry.
5. The handle was bouncy like a down breed with a crisp feel. The crimp is disorganized but apparent and finely corrugated.
6. The fibres were too short to flick or hand comb but the fleece was fairly clean of vegetable matter and was easy to open prior to carding.
7. It went through the carder easily and made uniform batts after two passes. The fleece hand cards into rolags nicely too.
8. Easy to spin into a woollen style yarn. Spinning a fine thread was effortless. Once washed the skein puffed up into a light bouncy yarn with tweed type colours from the light sun-faded tips and white patches in the original fleece.

I plan to spin and weave with the bulk of the fibre and turn it into light woollen finished fabric. Some of the yarn I’ll definitely save for knitting. The handle on the finished knitted fabric is bouncy and elastic but not as soft as modern day Merino. It should wear well and will be resilient much like the sheep it came from. I'm now sampling the yarns.
If you want to try a sample of fleece leave a comment below with your contact details and I’ll send you some.

Illusion knitting and some Suri fleece prep part 1.

2010-12-08T20:11:00.007+13:00

A knitted illusion shawl, this is what you see from viewing the side.

But facing the piece flat on, the design disappears.
This project captivated me and I just couldn’t put it down, even though the knitting requires care and attention on every other row. I’ve been intrigued by the woolly thoughts website for a while and in Steve Plummer’s illusion knitting designs. He has created several Harry Potter film character portraits and so I decided to have a go at ‘Hagrid’ in Flagstaff alpaca 8ply.

I’m also preparing several white Suri fleeces which I may send away for further processing once I’ve decided what I want to do with them, blending etc?
I going to wash it all myself and so have opened up the dirty locks prior to washing. It’s always amazing the dirt that gets trapped right inside each lock. It is fiddly to pull the locks apart, but white Suri is quite difficult to get completely clean without doing this.
These are quite fine micron fleeces with up to 15cms long staples. The twist in the lock traps the dust and holds onto it. Even dirty, these fleeces have a lovely lustre.

To decide on a blend (and I do also love to spin 100% suri) I’ve carded 60g of the washed suri with 20g of 21micron merino and 20g of silk.
The suri qualities are dominating this blend. I may try a blend with more silk and/or more merino. I have a limited amount of this lovely white suri so would like to stretch it as far as possible. There will be about 3-4 kilos of suri after washing.
I picture a few cones of this lustrous fine 3ply weight yarn sitting on my shelf waiting to be woven. Maybe natural dyeing some of it this summer.

On the loom is a 50/50 blend of suri and huacaya 2ply yarn sett at 20dpi. These are some scarves for two alpaca breeders who have had the yarn commercially spun. I have no fear of the warp breaking as the yarn is soft but strong and lovely. Can’t wait to finish threading and weave with it.

The neighbourhood.

2010-11-14T18:42:00.003+13:00

I was going to put some fibre content on this post, but....... I found these recent pictures instead. This is the normal state of the beach we regularly wander along. I know horrible is'nt it? Always so crowded. Bet you'd hate to have this as your local beach?
How do we stand living here?
We put up with it. The neighbours are so close...................
And there's just no view.............................

The cat's not that impressed either.........................

Still I have the plenty of this fibre in my woolshed ready to wash and spin.

I love the ears on this one, lovely hair cut. Aint they pretty. Now the weather is getting warmer it's definitely time to give me your coats...... my favourite time of the year.

Alpaca Expo

2010-10-18T20:46:00.005+13:00

On the 8th, 9th and 10th of October I enjoyed some time at the National Alpaca Expo in Christchurch. Surrounded by 300 plus alpacas from all around the country. I didn't manage to take many photos being busy on our stand but there were some of the top genetics present and a fabulous show of prize winning fleeces.
These young Suri's awaiting their time in the ring. What I like about NZ shows is the fact the animals appear in their natural 'paddock' state. No washing, brushing primping for these girls and boys.
More patient pacas.
This was a relatively small class compared to the white huacaya classes where there is a lot of competion. There were some gorgeous blacks too.
Our stand. Trade sites were very sparse and few here so we had a prime spot near the showring. In the quiet periods I got my spinning wheel out and enjoyed the judging.
These two were awaiting their time in the ring looking very calm and collected (owner's too).
Before leaving I had piles of skeins to split, reskein and label. This takes longer to do that dye each one it seems. Always lots of last minute jobs to do.
Plus a skein or two languishing in the dyepots and then onwards to the shop. I love seeing the liquid in the pot go completely clear as all the colour is sucked into the fibre. I then reuse the dyepot again and again only topping up with fresh water as the liquid levels drop. Being on a tank water supply I try to use as little water as possible and recycle as much as I can.

Posy Blankie

2010-09-01T20:54:00.003+12:00

Just finished this baby blanket made with Flagstaff 8ply alpaca. I bought cream yarn and dyed the five colours semi-solid so that they have some shading. It's actually easier to dye this way than flat even colour which requires a lot more attention and time bringing the temperature up slowly so the colours don't streak.
I designed the centre of the square so that it looks like a wild rose flower and finished it as a granny square with the usual treble groups. The squares are joined as you go on the last double crochet (UK) and chain round. I prefer this to sewing the squares together.
The project was perfect for taking to work as I could do most of the square without taking the whole blanket with me and finish the green rounds at home.

End of a blog holiday

2010-08-28T19:08:00.012+12:00

Although I haven't been either motivated or had much time to blog recently I'm still doing lots of fibre related things. So firstly some examples of the dyeing for both the 'Tote' shop and Flagstaff Alpacas. The picture above is a new colourway 'Ribbon' in 4ply 100% alpaca.
Then one of my favourites - 'Poison'. It's not the quickest to do as there are four colour to paint onto the skein and all of them are mixed, blended colours so it takes a little while to make up the colours. again on 4ply alpaca.
100g of 4ply alpaca in 'Fiesta' which is always a popular colourway. We do most of these colours in the boucle alpaca too and 8ply.
The boucle always comes out looking a little paler, than it does on the smoother yarns.
Above - another new colourway on the 4ply "Stormtrooper'. Olive, teal and dark blue with grey.
Our yarns are also available to purchase on the Flagstaff website. I'm dyeing more repeatable colours by recording the dye colours and how they are applied to the skeins. There are always some skeins which are unique and non repeatable but these are now coded NR.
The yarn sales have grown a lot over the last two years, with customers from both home and away overseas. So thank you if you have bought some and are using it. The alpacas are growing plenty more fibre. All these yarns are grown and spun in Otago. We are so fortunate to still have the Milton spinning mill operating despite the recession.
I'm so grateful my husband added a roof to the deck as I've been able to dye through a cold wet winter this year although they take several days to dry on the dull rainy days.

Below - I've been playing with network drafting on the dobby loom. I'm not too sure about this sample but it is an interesting technique which I plan to do a lot more when I can find some more playtime.

Lots of dyeing

2010-06-27T22:35:00.003+12:00

Lots more yarns rewound and labelled for the shop. Some of them are even repeatable (up to a point) as colourways. I actually wrote them down as I dyed the colours. The 'retail' ready skeins take ages to prepare so I can understand dyers choosing not to do this additional step in the process.
So to clear the palate I'm weaving lots of cream alpaca for a commission. a 2ply alpaca yarn that is very soft and gorgeous.
And.... some one colour, semi solid dyeing. This is more time consuming than the multicolour skeins strangely enough as I'm trying to get the colour fairly flat and saturated and not too streaky.
The red is balled up ready to go, two box loads of this colour amounting to about 19 kilos in just the red. The colour is actually darker than the photo suggests. No wonder my arms are tired. All handspun (not mine), just dyeing this load was enough work for me. Next stop is off to a weaver in the North Island.

My first projects on the Dobby loom

2010-06-19T20:09:00.008+12:00

Did I say I love this loom.
It has taken me a little while and with some assistance to get this loom into full functioning mood.
A learning curve as I've had to learn what the different mechanisms do without the written instructions. But with a few adjustments, it is up and weaving. So I took a dyed skein of alpaca and wound a warp for two shawls on my warping wheel.The AVL warping wheel is a piece of equipment that makes warping a real pleasure. A while ago I converted the back beam on the Ashford Jack loom to a sectional warp beam so that warping by myself would be easier. The wheel allows you to wind the warp from only one cone or more as desired and you can design the warp as you go which appeals to me.
Although the Dobby loom has an ordinary back beam it was still nice to wind the warp chains on the wheel, they stayed very tidy and all the same tension and length.As my first foray into eight shafts, I threaded a straight eight shaft twill.
The first shawl is woven with a cream weft and I chose a variation on a straight twill lift for the dobby lags.
The warp is a hand painted skein which I call 'Glacier' as I leave a third of it cream when I dye it, and the blue reminds me of the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers on the West coast.
The dobby mechanism has a neat little box useful for hiding tools inside, like threaders.

And look.... nothing by the weaver's feet but two neat pedals, and a roll of woven fabric.

The second shawl weft is a handyed blue. The shawls are nearly done and I'm very happy with how this loom works. Can't wait to put a new warp on.
The loom was made by Jim Mecchia in 1983, sturdy, functional and beautiful.

New Things

2010-05-28T21:57:00.005+12:00

What have I been doing recently, other than going to work. Well I had a trip to Queenstown ro pick up a 48" dobby mecchia loom. We dismantled it and brought it back to Oamaru and put it back together the same evening whilst it was all fresh in our minds. A few days later I began winding a warp onto the back beam. I need to fiddle about a bit with the heddles and have coloured them for each shaft (8 shafts) to make threading easier. However I have a warp of alpaca to go on to the Jack loom to complete some commission work so the mecchia will have to wait a bit longer but it's good to have a warp on it ready to go.
Also here's a peek inside my newly printed book commissioned and selling well for the Creative Fibre Society. A huge amount of work, so if you get to see a copy be gentle with any criticism. It aint perfect and it is based on my personal experiences with alpaca and llama fibre, so I acknowledge that your experiences will be different, and I'm sure there was a lot more I could have added, changed etc.
The best bit of the whole process of writing this book has involved all the sampling and playing with fibre.
And I still love this wonderful fibre and yarn.

The kittens are now 6 months old. Sophie, the little tabby is very much an indoor cat and very sweet and gentle. Ash is extremely playful and loves the garden and climbing all over my looms which I'm trying to discourage.
Every evening they sleep curled up together.

So lucky to live here.....

2010-04-07T20:36:00.003+12:00

Sometimes I forget what a beautiful place I live in with gorgeous empty beaches in the neighbourhood.
Stretches of the ocean to wander along.Yellow-eyed penguins close by. This was the moulting period in February this year when they do a lot of standing around.
This summer there was dredging happening on Oamaru sea front in preparation for repairing the sea defences and several old train engines were pulled out of the sea. The original protection from the advancing sea many years ago. These were given to the local steam engine preservation society. Now there are just a pile of rocks all along this stretch of wall and the view of the sea is completely obliterated.

Back to weaving

2010-03-08T21:33:00.002+13:00

This is where I weave on a Sunday at our Textile Co-operative shop which is housed in a stone victorian building in the historic precinct of Oamaru. I'm weaving on an Ashford Jack loom. We also have a 60" Mecchia countermarche loom here too with a flying shuttle.
In the summer we get over a 100 visitors a day through our doors and we get to answer the same questions over and over again, but that's life and we get to meet some interesting people from all over the world. Some even buy our products to take back home. In the winter we get to wear lots of alpaca and wool because it's really chilly in our big stone building but at the moment we're basking in late summer heat. Summer finally arrived just as the trees are turning red and gold.

Sophia pulls some very strange expressions. She was just getting over the flu, I know how she feels, but she's much better now, eating well and chasing lots of moths and flies.

Two Kitties

2010-03-05T22:20:00.005+13:00

Well family persuasion led to a trip to the SPCA where they are overloaded with cats and kittens.
One tiny little black kitten (very small for 14 weeks old) chose us and we also took home a little female tabby of the same age who was very shy. So meet Sophie and Ash. Although they came home with a touch of cat flu which made them very quiet for a few days, they are now feeling much better and have started to develop their own personalities. despite a 'funny' hip joint, Sophie the tabby can really get some speed up chasing her ball whilst Ash is the climber.
I'd forgotten how small but lively kittens are. But nothing sweeter than sleepy cats in your arms.

Friends

2010-02-22T19:24:00.007+13:00

Charlie my weaving assistant has featured here before in this blog. But he is also the family friend.
He's a bit of a computer geek although the effort tires him somewhat.
He's a sensitive soul, some T.V. images offend him. Highlights from 'Crufts' for example.
He can do that 'headless under the duvet thing'.
As guardian of the Skeins, he inspects every soft package that comes into the house.
I guess he's quite a balanced kind of a guy.
Spontaneous even, bringing friends home for tea.
Often holding court in his own chair.

Sadly our friend was killed last Friday morning on the road.
At the tender age of 4.
We miss you Charlie.....................

It's all keeping me busy

2010-02-10T20:26:00.005+13:00

As part of the project I can't really blog about yet I've been hunting for handspun yarns to photograph. Many end up in completed articles so it was nice to find these few skeins of blended alpaca with silk and wool. Now all I want to do is start knitting or crocheting with them.
I did find some time today to do a little bit of fibre combing on the deck today as a break from the computer work which is keeping me indoors. The best place to attach the combs because I didn't want to hunt for a firm table was our wooden deck seat which is surprisingly heavy having a lot of wood in it. reminds me that we'll need to re-oil the chairs again.
Then got the Ashford joy out for a little camel spinning. This is adult camel top in ....well.... camel colour of course. It is quite hairy and strong fibre. I have a little baby camel fibre too which will be an interesting comparison. Spins very easily and is very clean so no waste which is fortunate since I had to import it from North America. No fibre bearing camels in North Otago sadly.

Weaving in the new year

2010-01-20T16:57:00.006+13:00

No I haven't been spending all my time on the beach, quite the reverse in fact since the weather has been days and days of wind, drizzling rain or both. At least that's been the weather on any day off from work I've had. Not even good dyeing days. but I have a couple of big projects to keep me going over the last couple of months which I can't really talk about here at the moment but will post when they go public. But there's no place like a beach when you need to a break every now and again and I'm not a sun worshipper anyway. I like the more muted light of an overcast day.
Then it's back to the alpaca weaving and another wrap of beautiful soft dark brown huacaya alpaca comes off the loom.

Christmas shearing

2009-12-23T20:50:00.009+13:00

These alpacas were certainly ready to loose their warm coats last week.They are Flagstaff bred alpacas now living in Oamaru. Although laying them out and tying ropes to their feet seem harsh it is for their own and the shearer's safety. Once restrained they usually relax and let it all happen around them. It is very necessary to remove their fleece each year as it will continue to grow and get matted as well as causing the animal to suffer from the heat. The contrast is always amazing from big fluffy animals to little skinny ones. The shearer is Andy from Flagstaff alpacas in Dunedin. He also checks the feet and trims the nails if necessary, teeth check and any vacinating as required. Taking off the fleece is a timely way of checking the animals general skin health and body condition.
This mum was looking forward to a new hairstyle too. Nothing worse than hair blowing in youe eyes. The contrast once shorn is always startling. A lot of sniffing of each other happens afterwards since they also seem startled by each other's appearances.
I came home with a couple of fleeces to play with, thank you girls.

Victorian Oamaru

2009-11-22T20:44:00.007+13:00

Yesterday (Saturday) was the parade and no Santa in sight. although the Queen and the wizard made an appearance with the mayor. Penny Farthings were plentiful.
Cute kids in bonnets riding carriages,
Not sure why he's carrying a spare wheel.
The singing and whistling policeman put in an appearance, an arresting sight.

Followed by the temperence and votes for women supporters.
There were loads of old cars.

Today was the Fete with good weather, and a big crowd. I didn't get time to take any photos as I was busy in Tote weaving on the floor loom and answering lots of questions. I'm quite tired tonight. My daughter spent her day slaving in a nearby coffee shop.

A change from spinning alpaca

2009-10-28T15:53:00.003+13:00

Although I'm still doing lots of fibre work, mostly it seems for other people, which is fine and I enjoy the commission work although I don't blog much about it, It seems to fill up my spare time and computer time gets very restricted. But over a period of three months or so in very small chunks of time (i.e. 2 hours a week whilst attending a painting group) I've been painting this picture in acrylic paints. I'ts not completed yet but it's getting there. I'ts been a challenge as I haven't painted anything seriously for many years and have had to learn and relearn some very rusty skills. but I've really enjoyed the journey and look forward to starting another painting. The landscape is typical of Central Otago, burnt grassland and blue green hills. This particular alpaca went so well with the environment. The painting is based on a photograph taken by Ann Rogers (an alpaca breeder and wonderful photographer from Rangiora). Her subjects are alpacas from all over NZ and Australia. In the series I'm planning to paint a Suri and Llama.

A bowl full of fibre goodness

2009-09-07T21:13:00.007+12:00

A bowlful of lustrous handspun suri fibre.

I bought these bowls from Peter I particularly love the shading in this blue bowl . Are we going to eat our cereal out of these? probably not but they may feature from time to time here as vessels for my yarn samples.
I'm enjoying them as visual colour treats in their own right.
See Peter's blog for the methods that produce his alchemy of colour and shape.

The end of July ....had enough of the cold.

2009-07-29T21:59:00.003+12:00

A view of the sea from Kakanui taken at the end of the summer by my husband. I love the architectural quality of the lines and the textures.
I'm plodding away on two commission pieces and some spinning for clients.
The suri shawl in the previous post won a first prize and the colour award at the alpaca conference which was really exciting. Mostly I'm grateful to have submissions accepted for various shows so a prize (or two) is a lovely bonus.
The rest of my time has been spent doing the mundane trivia of everyday life.
However, I'm escaping for a couple of hours every Thursday evening to a painting class and I might even post what I'm working on, maybe....

Suri shawl

2009-06-10T19:36:00.008+12:00

This is what I've been preoccupied with recently. It's my entry for the 'fibre with flair' exhibition at the national alpaca conference to be held at the end of this month. the yarn is handspun Suri alpaca dyed with Sticta coronata lichen. A native of NZ.
You can obtain different colours from this lichen and I've only used less than 100g to dye all the yarn for this shawl, changing the purple shades with a bit of ammonia in some of the dyebaths and finally breaking up the the plant to release the yellowy green shades.
You can carry on dipping yarn into the dyepot until the colours are very pale.

Boiling this dyestuff spoils the colours and the lichen leeches a red wine liquor when you pour very hot water over it.
You can revive the lichen by resting it for a few days between dyeing. It's a magical dyestuff and a little goes a long way. This lot of lichen is still useable and I'll be dyeing some of the yellower shades again with it.
The colours and the style of irish crochet used in this shawl remind me of faded vintage fabrics.
The suri really makes the fabric glow which you can't see from the photos.
so I've popped it in the post today.

Lots of dyeing

2009-06-02T21:05:00.004+12:00

My husband was overheard telling his clients last week that I was going home to dye every night which raised a few eyebrows. But here are the results of a lot of work, all dyed, reskeined, labelled and ready for sale. All 12 kilos of it. Not bad considering it was fairly dark by the time I got to my dye shed every evening, and cold. It was hard leaving the warm log fire after tea.
Actually naming each of the colourways takes a while too. Some are easier to name than others.
These are all commercially spun alpaca yarns but from fairly local alpacas. These are all destined for the craft shows with Andy from Flagstaff Alpacas.I like his label with the alpaca holding a flower in it's mouth. Go see his site for the events he'll be attending in the next few months with all his lovely alpaca products.

Creative Fibre festival.

2009-04-22T20:24:00.004+12:00

Ahh Festival. What can one say about festival. Now just a memory and a slightly overused credit card. I meant to take a lot more photos but only remembered the camera on the last day.
The weather was glorious. the speaker's interesting and entertaining. I was only able to attend on the Saturday and Sunday due to work commitments.
The Trade hall was a buzz with people meeting, greeting and trading. Sunday morning was probably the quietest time, which is when I took the photos. Some beautiful fibres and hand dyed yarns displayed.
Alpaca products, spinning wheels and Dobby looms. Every fibre imaginable from bamboo and silk to rare sheep breeds and soy silk or cotton. so I visited the hall quite a bit over the weekend.
I didn't get to see the fashion show but certainly heard some very positive reviews and did get to see the garments up close. Some fabulous garments including a few handspun.
Felted garments are still very well represented but weaving also was well supported with entries plus some knitting and a few designs incorporating crochet. Classic fabrics such as checks and houndstooth mixed with other fabrics.
The child's section was colourful and fun. Lots of natural fibres used.
The alpaca award went to Jenny Ellewood-wade with this beautiful entry using yarn spun from her own alpacas. I liked the cut and style of her jacket. she told me it was woven on her 8 shaft table loom.
Thanks South Canterbury Area for a great festival.

Harvest Home

2009-04-11T20:58:00.008+12:00

Every Autumn the historic Totora Estate in Oamaru (home to the first shipment of exported frozen meat) holds an open day to celebrate another successful harvest and to remind us of our roots.
So on a warm but overcast April Sunday the crowd came, and the threshing machine started up........The pennyfarthing riders stood around ........

The hay bales were tossed, after plenty of beer was drunk......
The Trug maker demonstrated his craft and plied his wares.....

The sheep just sat around.....
So did the spinners and weavers.......

There was also some nice displays such as our table on natural dyeing and the finished products.
It was a great day. The lamb burgers were delicious.

Holey scarf

2009-03-25T21:05:00.002+13:00

I dug out some singles handspun wool yarn which I'd had in my stash maturing, no idea what it was, not overly soft but I'd spun the fibre which I know I dyed in long sequences of colour.
I read the instructions for the scarves which appeared in the winter 08 'Spin Off' magazine and used my rigid heddle loom to weave this one.
Then rolled it in tea towels and put it into a mesh bag and into the washer. I did have to rub it a bit by hand afterwards as I could still move the weft threads around a bit when the cycle had finished. First picture is the fabric straight off the loom and the others show it after a wash and steam press. Looking forward to using some more stash yarns for this technique, perhaps in a shawl.

sssssuri.......

2009-03-11T20:08:00.005+13:00

This is the second crochet suri shawl I've just finished. The fibre came from one fleece. A little suri goes a long way. A lot of spinning. When I was crocheting it it looked like a rumpled scrunched up mess but a soak in warm soapy water relaxed the yarn and it just dropped into this drapey shawl...phew......
Soon be on it's way to you Brenda.
A demonstration of NZ lichen dyeing on suri yarns at Flagstaff's alpaca open day led to these two skeins.
Ammonia added to the pink one's dye liquor and the other one was left as is.
Below some combed suri, silk and merino resting on my newly made spindle. I used the same wool dye to paint the wooden bead and dowel as I dyed the fibre in, good match hey?

Crochet samples and what I've just finished.

2009-02-11T19:43:00.003+13:00

Here's what I've been spinning after washing, carding etc for a client. Some rose grey alpaca fleece, 2kilos worth. I know doesn't look that much in the picture but believe me its a few nights work.
Why when I get the camera out does someone furry want to get in the picture.

Some tidying of my boxes in preparation for taking a crochet class and I find these samples. This blue green one imitating a plaid design became a little baby jacket with hood for a nephew. The yarn is wool and silk.

Half trebles worked in a two colour design. The yarns are naturally dyed with madder, logwood, indigo, weld and brazilwood.

Plus a bit of natural coloured yarn thrown in. I never did use this design but it was a jumping off point for other ideas.

Natural dye books and a tartan

2009-01-31T18:30:00.006+13:00

Here are a couple of books from my library, they are ones that had to come with me when we came to live in NZ 10 years ago. I just couldn't part with them. I have since seen Sarah Burnett's book here in a secondhand bookshop.
'Natural dyes - fast or fugitive' by Gill Dalby is a small but really useful little book. There is only one colour plate with her dye samples on in the back of the book. Her recipes work really well and are a great place to start for my own experiments. My copy is a reprint from 1989 (first printed in 1985).
I suspect this book is now out of print so if you ever see it secondhand, grab it quick, its a gem.
I bought Sarah Burnett's book in 1990 when it was newly published and I'd begun to play with natural dyeing. the photos are amazing and I use the indigo recipe from this book because it is so easy to use from the clear instructions and never fails. Probably also out of print now. Her knitted projects are really beautiful and inspirational.
Isn't she gorgeous?
It is such a lavish book, the colours are mouth watering and the models look like they really enjoyed being photographed. Many of the motifs would work well in the more fitted styles popular now, although I suspect that garments with more ease will come back into their own.

The O'Brien tartan fabric on the loom is a fabric Kate and I are creating for a waistcoat for our local bookbinder here in Oamaru. Kate spun the yarn from wool from her own sheep and we've dyed them using weld, onion skins, indigo and madder.

My fibre stash

2009-01-15T22:11:00.007+13:00

Here's a peek at my raw fleece storage area (well part of it anyway).
I try to get the fleeces washed and at least carded within a year so that I won't attract moths and other wee pests.
The raw fibre goes into labelled paper bags with the weight of each sorted fleece. I only store useable fibre so the fleece gets sorted carefully before being bagged.
I have my triple picker in this shed also. The secret to getting the fibre well picked ready for carding is to take time adjusting the cradle space so the tines pick apart easily and effortlessly. Oh and not pushing too much fibre through at a time.On the dye front I'm experimenting with soaking natural plant materials in alcohol (cheap vodka) to remove the colour. I'm really impressed with how much colour is leeching out of the plant stuff. Here are jars containing (l to r) brazilwood, flax flower pods and annatto seeds.
Also planned is eucalyptus. I want to extract colour as intensely as I can so that I dye with measured amounts of colour for more control on my yarns. The flax leeched a lot of colour in the first five minutes of soaking but I've heard it is a very strong dye stuff.
And a skein of mohair and merino fresh from the indigo vat.

2009-01-01T09:45:00.002+13:00

Two sample baby blankets, the swedish lace one pulled in a lot more lengthways after washing than I had anticipated, even with washing the sample first. They are natural coloured 100% fine alpaca fibre and sooo soft and light. The handspinning took me ages and I still feel the fawn yarn for the woven one should be finer. I love the subtle texture (you can't see it in the photos) from the handspun which gives the pieces that human (non manufactured) look. I did full the woven one in the wash to make sure the floats of the lace pattern were structurally sound. That is compacted to the surface so it was hard to lift them away from background. My fear with 100% alpaca is that it might shed fibres due to it's slippery nature and with no wool content to entrap the fibre. However I have made several (at least 30) items with 100% alpaca from a variety of sources although predominantly handspun which are either wearing well (my own items) or from which I have had no complaints from the customer (yet). I also treat my samples quite roughly both in the washing and I rub the surface and pick at it to see whether I can encourage pilling and shedding. In some cases I've had to add more twist to the yarn or re-evaluate the fabric techniques i.e. resley the reed for a closer sett on the loom or work with a smaller crochet hook. Sleazy fabrics do seem to encourage movement of fibre in the yarns.

So is sampling time consuming? ....absolutely, is it necessary.... usually and it does save time in the long run and yes, I have my share of failed projects which I may possibly publish from time to time on this blog, of the few that still exist.

Cat weaving class

2008-12-19T20:39:00.003+13:00

First select your loom. This looks about cat size.
Lifting the heddle off with your teeth requires practise.
So where's the yarn?

haircut day and some weaving

2008-11-26T20:05:00.005+13:00

When is a suri not a suri - when it's shorn this close, the fibre left shines like velvet.
A morning spent at Allan and Jackie Grant's alpaca farm and assisted (bagging fibre and sweeping) whilst 9 alpacas got their annual haircuts. One very pregnant suri seemed very glad to shed her heavy hot coat.
The tui (adolescent) alpaca in the photo below was a bit fearful this being her first shearing experience but she was very good really.This is what is on my loom at home, the yarn is handspun, would have liked it to be finer, natural coloured huacaya alpaca being woven in a swedish lace pattern.Being woven into a baby blanket.
Moral of this weaving is keep your loom in good order. One by one the string tying the sticks to the front of the apron broke and had to be replaced. Wish I'd done them before tying the warp on.

Nearly the weekend.

2008-11-07T20:02:00.003+13:00

Playtime on the loom. This little four shaft loom lives at the Textile co-operative shop and when I have time it's nice to weave something , this time just for fun. I dug out some of the 4ply wool yarn I'd dyed for the shop and put it in both the warp and weft, different colours, and wove plain weave, changing colour and even incorporating textured yarns at random, just enjoying the weaving process. The fabric is now off the loom and after I've washed it I'll see what it wants to be.
I can't keep up with the carding, as the batts go into the shop they just disappear. I was hoping to get to spin some myself. They do require a lot of work as the raw fibres get washed, dyed, carded in their individual colours before recarding into multicoloured blends. The best bit is mixing the finished colours together at the end.
There are more tourists about now in Oamaru, hope the weather warms up soon, it's been really cold today and a frost is predicted for the early hours tomorrow. Our neighbour will be out early with his helicopter protecting the vineyards from frost. The grapes are well on in Otago and elsewhere so frost warnings this late into spring are not taken lightly.
Anyway I'd better go and soak some more fleece for dyeing.

Show Time

2008-10-28T19:54:00.004+13:00

Halter trained and looking our best
Show time at the National alpaca Expo in Christchurch this month.

Enrico and Andy looking good, one of them won first prize.

This was a big class and required lots of patience for both handler and alpaca.
About 300 alpacas on show. I had a good view from our stand, sat and spun my yarn and enjoyed the view.
Not a big public turn out and day one was very warm. No big sales but enough to make it worthwhile coming to the expo and good to chat to people and admire their beautiful animals.

The colour of spring even though it's not here yet.

2008-09-05T19:40:00.003+12:00

Some soft colours for lovely soft alpaca. Natural dyeing requires lots of bowls, so another trip to the second hand shops is due. It takes time to soak all the plant material overnight, boil it up, mordant the yarn and leave it to cure for several dyes before finally combining the yarn and dye to cook in some colour. It's a slow process and one I'm enjoying despite my busy days. Mostly these things can happen whilst I'm doing something else. So after a week or two of waiting here are the fruits of my labour, all washed and reskeined.
The plants I've used for these include brazilwood, and madder, osage orange, sandlewood and the little dried cochineal beetle. The paler shade are exhaust baths and mixing some of the dyebaths together.
The photo below shows one of my yarn displays at the Oamaru Textile Exchange. The yarns on the left are the natural dyed ones and the others are acid dyed handpainted skeins.
Next on the agenda is fustic, eucalyptus and indigo. Just mordanting another pile of yarn with alum. I'll take some more during shots.
It's been pretty variable here weatherwise, rain, wind, cold, sunshine, the works in fact. A few little lambs running around the neighbouring paddocks but not nearly the number as last year thanks to irrigation and the dairy industry growing so fast here. What a shame cows don't have woolly coats, black and white on one animal would be really useful.

Carding a cloud or two.

2008-07-30T17:12:00.004+12:00

A day off from office work has been a good catch up time for carding some stock to replenish the shelves at the Oamaru Textile co-operative shop. This is carded batts of alpaca, merino and silk.
I'ts taken me the day to card this pile (there's about 2 kilos) of different colours, each blend is put through my supercard twice. This is on top of the time spent to find and buy the fleece, wash it, sort it, card it, dye it, wash it again, dry it, recard into colour blends, now all thats left is to label it and hope it finds good homes. I've been really pleased at the number of felters who have been buying my fibre too as well as spinners. It's so tempting to keep half of them to spin myself.

The green batt is an example of a silk and alpaca blend.
And a photo of a cushion cover where I dyed the yarns and stitched the cat on canvas from a Kaffee Fassett embroidery pattern. Its about 10 years old now and the cat is often snuggled up against it.

What have I been spinning, some alpaca and silk spun fine..ish to go on a warp for either a scarf or shawl.

Back to nature....sort of.

2008-07-27T16:42:00.009+12:00

Various things recently have rekindled my interest in natural dyeing. One was a discussion with a couple of people on different occasions about dyeing with woad and whether it is possible to grow woad here in NZ since it is a noxious weed in some countries. This inspired me to dig out my dyed samples from about 15 years ago. All I could remember was that it was a lot of work both in preparation and the actual dyeing compared to dyeing with synthetic dyes.
Next step led me to digging out of the bookcase several of my natural dye books for a few nights bedtime read and suddenly yearning to do some plant dyed yarns again.
The yarn harlot always talks about the addiction of the yarn fumes. Handling and yes even smelling those softly coloured dyed yarns took me right back to those 'cooking days' when the pot on the aga might possibly contain soup or simmering weld plants. Some of the smells were definitely not as attractive as food. NZ lichen and recent samples.

Now I have a dyeing shed and everything happens away from the kitchen (to my family's relief).
I've spent some (okay a lot) of my spare time mordanting yarn (in particular my alpaca yarns), simmering dyestuffs such as madder, cochineal, osage orange, sandlewood and dyeing. Because the processes are lengthy but need some pot watching, I've been listening to podcasts and hand combing. I discovered David Reidy's 'Sticks and String' podcast recently and have had some enjoyable listening going through his archives, as well as my usual time spent with Knitcast and weavecast. The sludge of osage orange left after the first simmering and dyebath.

The magical moments of natural dyeing... what is in the pot simmering won't reflect what the actual colour is going to be and even the dye liquid only gives you a little insight. Plus what you get is.... what you get, and the next skein dyed in the same pot will be different, how the colours exhaust can also lead to surprises, just leaving the skeins in the pot overnight can deepen or change the colour. Leftover sandlewood with cochineal .

The lichen samples below are dyed from the unique NZ sticta coronata and a small sample of this lichen goes a long way as presimmering it produces the pinks and purples followed by the fawns and pale yellows. It can be revitalised and colour altered with either an alkaline added or acid.
Although I've only be mordanting with Alum this time round, this lichen doesn't need a mordant at all. It also smells gently of the earth when you simmer it...
This is dyed on my handspun suri alpaca.

S is for silky suri spinning.....

2008-06-23T19:11:00.009+12:00

Photo of Que Cee courtesy of Flagstaff Alpacas. www.wonderfulalpacas.co.nz

Part 1. – an Overview.
I have dallied with suri fibre now for three years plus, ever since I found some sources of regular fibre. During this period I’ve researched by google, library, alpaca breed magazines and from the Suri’s mouth so to speak. There’s nothing quite like the hands on knowledge of touching the animal as it grows it’s fleece.
There’s always a thrill in seeing Suri alpacas in the flesh. I think they’re so graceful and beautiful with the sunlight reflecting off their lustrous coats.
How I’d love to own a few.
So it’s no surprise that there are several sackfuls of raw suri fleece in my garage, and carding room. All different colours, styles of ringlets, and weights. All with the names of the individual animals on them. In many cases, the name conjuring a picture of a place each calls home and a quick stroke of the fibre on the animal’s back. The surprising cool slickness through my fingers before the Suri moves off to graze or join the rest of the herd.

Converting raw suri fleece to yarn is not for those in a hurry for several reasons:
1. There is no crimp, only slippery, shiny waves and curls. The fleece lacks cohesion unlike sheep’s wool, so once off the animal, the locks lie individually on the table and separate.
2. Tight ringlets are not easy to pick open into a fluffy mass. Opening by hand is still the best way of creating a fluffy cloud ready to be carded.
Opening and fluffing with hand cards does a really nice job too, then I drumcard.
Putting them through a mechanical picker is less satisfactory,particularly if the locks are
fine with tight locking.They go straight past the teeth.
3. Suri fibre needs to be fed into a drumcarder at a relatively low speed,it builds static easily
and can be very flyaway.
4. Lack of crimp means there is no ‘bounce’ to the yarn, it does not shorten in width once it is washed, and will make a heavy yarn if spun thickly. However, it makes lovely, sleek, soft, fine yarn. Think silk……..
5. It is not like spinning wool at all, more like mohair.

Initially I began combing raw locks by hand using a pair of Majacraft hand combs.
The locks being relatively long create luxurious hand combed top which is so easy to spin, however, there is at least 40% waste, some of which can be carded,but comes off the comb all mixed in with debris, dust and very short fibres.The top is well worth the effort and spins into a really sleek, silky yarn.
Hand combing is time consuming and can be hard on the hands and wrist.
Spinning hand combed top is easy and fast. The subsequent yarn needs plenty of twist but will be strong and less likely to shed(all the short fibres have been removed).So I comb suri for my own yarns,but the method of preparation is too time- consuming to make it a viable product for our shop.

Drum carding on the electric carder needs the fleece well washed and opened(usually by the hand method, and hand cards).Again the finished batt reflects the amount of work put into sorting the staples,removing the debris and opening the fibre well and feeding the suri into
the carder slowly.
Dyeing suri can be done at the fleece stage or as yarn.Dyeing raw locks is easy, the fibres don’t felt readily.Tight locking structure in the fibre can resist dye, so soak fleece well before dyeing
and bring the dyebath up from cold, or better still soak the locks for 20 minutes or so in the dyebath prior to heating it. Suri take natural dyes well too.

Suri blends well with wool (I usually use merino for softness),silk of course, tencel, mohair, bamboo etc.The choice is yours. The silk and Suri blends are gorgeous.
Suri adds lustre and shine to the matt merino.The merino gives the Suri some ‘tooth’ and elasticity to the mix.70/30 or 50/50 make good blends, the Suri properties are visible even at 30%.

Spun fine, a little suri fibre goes a long way and is ideal for lace scarves,wraps etc and in woven cloth.I’m keen to brush some to make a light ‘mohair’ style shawl.I have noticed that a nap is raised and the 100% Suri yarnsfluff readily if the skein is handled a lot.
I also think suri would make a great boucle yarn and perhaps cabling a yarn
for added smoothness and shine. Handspun Suri yarns and blends below.

missing....lost under a pile of fibre

2008-05-22T21:44:00.002+12:00

I'm still here, somewhere.
Although my blog is quiet its because my hands are so busy at the moment.
Trying to get some of my commission pieces done, the list is getting longer.
I have two classes to teach very soon which require kits and yarns to be packaged, lessons planned in depth and samples to complete.
All on top of the day job, which requires our business accounts to be balanced and complete for the annual audit...aghhh... asap.
Then there's the siren song of the beautiful baby Guanaco fleece waiting for me to spin and an idea for a weaving mulling around in my mind.
I'm also guilty of a bit of procrastination, spending time trawling ravelry.
Will take some photos of the present projects to post soon, when I can find the camera again from under the pile.

packing up fibre to go.

2008-04-19T19:47:00.002+12:00

Last night I spent a good while packing a suitcase and boxes with suri fibre blends and a few yarns to take to the Dunedin Spinners and weavers meeting today,where the reception was warm despite the chilly weather. Our first truly winter day here in the south.
Came home with a lighter suitcase, thanks folks.
The box of batts on the left is a lot emptier now.
Even in this photo the lustre of the suri and silk is visible. I enjoy giving talks and demos on my fibre obsession although I always worry beforehand (and repack and double check) as I'm affraid of leaving something important behind. Like my prompt notes, or the hand outs I need.
Once back home I had a short dyeing session as I need a few more skeins for Tote shop.
Must be the cold, or meeting Stella in person, but I feel some sock knitting coming on, I've only completed one pair in my knitting life, the yarn will be hand dyed I think and I have a fairly straightforward pattern to begin with, and I could sneak it in to work.
Actually today was a successful day for everyone, my daughter got her formal dress in town, husband spent some time in Katmandu although he forgot the frying pan purchase he has bought some more shirts so I can tear the old ones into rags (when he's not looking), and son bought himself a cool jacket and umbrella,occassionally it rains in Oamaru:)

Easter to dye for

2008-03-25T19:57:00.011+13:00

Last view of the fabric I've been weaving since the beginning of January on my Jack loom. It's a herringbone twill in natural sheep colours. It's now off the loom and being tailored by Chantel from the Oamaru Textile Exchange into a vic torian style costume.Pictures to follow when we complete the outfit.I'm very grateful to Chantel for offering to do this, my sewing leaves a lot to be desired.
Hot weather still continueing so dyepot was busy over Easter holiday. The blue stuff below is Suri locks dyeing in an electric frypan.
Did loads of carding too on my electric carder some for the shop and the rest for my talk,demo, sales at the Dunedin Spinners and Weaver's meeting day in April.

What am I making crochetwise at the moment.
A shawl for myself, it's going to get cold this winter in out stone building at Tote, and a crochet rug (blanket) from an alpaca fleece for a commission.
Photos to follow when further along.

last 5 days have sped by, back to work tomorrow, sigh.......

Back on track

2008-03-12T19:54:00.005+13:00

Well finally got to blog again after a frustrating two weeks of frozen computer syndrome.
Just not enough ram in the old dear to cope with broadband. The upside being time for lots of dyeing of yarn. Just as well as the stock of hand dyed yarns has been drastically depleted by my customers in the shop.
So Bob swopped the old computer with his slightly newer model from his home office and has done a great job moving over all the important files, no quick job, especially as there were a few glitches to sort out.
Although I've spent a lot of time in my hot steamy dye room, I didn't get around to photographing the stuff. But here's a couple of pictures of one of my tapestry crochet bags. The yarn is handspun alpaca. It wasn't the softest fleece, but made very good bag yarn. The image is my rendition of a Pukeko, which is my favourite NZ bird, related to the rail family, sometimes referred to as a swamp hen. I love their long red legs and absurdly big feet. When they become roadkill which is a regular occurence sadly, they look like a mangled umbrella. They are so colourful and characterful. This design was also my most popular when I used to make bags for two galleries and so I got a bit sick of making them, but now after a break from using this design for 6 months I feel another Pukeko project coming on.

Hot days and haircuts.

2008-02-26T20:34:00.006+13:00

The past weekend was extremely busy. On Saturday demonstrating spinning alpaca fibre at the Oamaru A and P show day.The weather was sweltering but 4 of us sat and spun on a variety of wheels. There were less animals on show this year, Sheep numbers well down.
We had our stand with a couple of pens of alpacas beside the main arena. The animals always catch a lot of attention. I found the heat trying and by midday all the alpacas were cushed down on the grass, chewing placidly and people watching.
On Sunday I was invited to talk about alpaca fibre processing at an alpaca stud’s open day in Dunedin.
Another scorching day. Fortunately plenty of shade provided by some mature trees.
During the day three alpaca/llama crosses from a neighbouring farm got a haircut each. Only managed to photograph the first, who, being a blue eyed white was also deaf and was the least bothered by the noise
of the electric blades. They also got their nails trimmed and vaccinations.
Hot work for Howard the shearer as there was a lot of fleece.
Sooo... hot, glad of a lie down in the shade.

Quite like this attention.
What's he looking for in there?

Please not the poodle cut....

Came home with several bags of suri fleece (thanks Andy) and a much smaller bag of precious baby Guanaco fleece, ( big thanks) which I’m soooo looking forward to processing even though I know I’m going to be spending a large amount of time picking out the hairs. Guanaco being a dual coated, hair/down fleece.
The down is very short as I expected but very soft and honey coloured. Haven’t spun any Guanaco fleece
for many years.
Guinivere is now over 6 months old. She stayed way at the Back of the paddock with mum so I didn’t manage to get a good photo of her. She looks as noble as her mum and dad and is therefore aptly named.

Busy dyeing

2008-02-12T20:41:00.000+13:00

Whilst the farmers have bemoaned all this fine summer weather and drought conditions I've been dyeing lots of yarn and fibre for my section of the shop.
It's been fantastic drying weather.
I've also been busy trying to get some projects finished which are paying customer orders.
I'm hoping to finish the knitted alpaca jacket by the end of this week and have several metres left to weave on my Jack loom of a broken herringbone tweed which is going to be tailored into a victorian skirt, hopefully in time for modelling at a fashion show at the black and coloured sheep breeders conference here in the south island in May.
Did sneak a new project of knitted fingerless gloves as I felt compelled to try out some of the new yarn colour I've just dyed, a shop sample of course! Have to show my customer's what can be done with a skein of yarn. this is actually a frequent question so am planning a few example finished items to show what can be made with only one skein.
Photos below of the 4ply pure wool skeins and some 200g balls for those people planning bigger things.

I've also been weaving with the wool yarns in both warp and weft and they've performed really well. The yarn is really smooth but washes into a softer fabric off loom which shows off the weaving pattern. See purple scarf entry previously with curlicues.
I do love a yarn that it versatile.
The wool is Anna Gratton's lovely yarn from the little wool company in the north island.
Same 4ply wool yarn in 50g skeins. These have been my big seller so far.
Ah well back to the dyepots.

From the place of the merino....

2008-01-29T20:43:00.002+13:00

A trip to Central otago for a few days break and a bit of stash enhancement. The yarns are all Touch yarns.
A boucle mohair yarn and some fine kid mohair. Plus some quirky sheep buttons from the Merino shop in Tarras.
Very hot day, all the merinos were sheltering under trees and bushes. Looking forward to getting their summer haircuts.

Came home to a big package of 5 kilos worth of merino and mohair 4ply yarn, so dyed these last night
for our shop. I'm always torn as to whether I should wind into balls or sell as skeins. Skeins win for showing off the colours but I do sell some of the 100% wool yarns in 200g wound balls.
Compared to the straight wool I've been dyeing recently, the mohair blend just sucks up the dye so quickly. a bit like dyeing superwash wool.

Tote

2008-01-15T16:24:00.001+13:00

A Textile craft Co-Operative in Oamaru.
After two years of planning and discussion "The Oamaru Textile Exchange" was finally created. The word exchange was chosen as part of our title as the late 1800's building is known as the Sumpter Exchange after the founder of the local spinning mill here in Oamaru. Our wool connections are even more tangible than this, as in the building behind us is a current wool store piled with raw wool bales. So we experience parfum de sheep every day. Our small textile craft co-operative is housed downstairs whilst upstairs lives several old hattersley looms.
This is our street scape, a line of victorian whitestone buildings, restored or undergoing restoration. We officially opened in October 2007 and were up and running in time for the yearly victorian celebrations in November.
the textile Exchange houses a retail area and workshop space so we artisans can work at our various crafts in public view. This is a popular tourist area attracting mostly overseas visitors.
Not a very good interior shot, will do some more later to add to this blog. On site at various times of the day or week are people wearing and making victorian clothes on fully functioning old sewing machines, spinners, knitters and weavers. We also sell hand embroidery, yarns, handspinning fibre, clothing, hats, scarves, patchwork etc.
Photos of the working Hattersley loom owned by the Mcleans. Originally used on the west Coast of NZ by a commercial weaver, followed by Lawrence and finally housed upstairs here in Oamaru. Built in Yorkshire, they are historic looms associated with the scottish cottage tweed industry.

Affraid of colour?

2008-01-07T13:17:00.000+13:00

You may perhaps have already noticed that I’m not too scared of splashing a colour or two about in my work. I admit that most of my projects involve more than half a dozen different colours, shades, tones etc. In fact I enjoy the challenges of using lots of differentBalls of dyed yarn in my work.Do I do any natural and single coloured projects? Actually yes, although often these are for other people at their request.I’ve done a number of different garments in black for instance. Right as I speak there is a black alpaca jacket sleeve sitting on my knitting needles as well as a natural brownAlpaca yarn in the process of being knitted into a hat. Over this last year I’ve woven several natural coloured scarves and wraps, crocheted a black shawl and knitted a short coat in brown. See suri scarf below in previous blog. I do like fibre in its natural, living colours, I’m a handspinner and therefore collector of fleece. I admit quite a few of them are white (grubby white as they wait to be washed), and destined for the dyepot.I just find the colourful stuff so appealing to do and photograph.

Above is a tapestry crocheted tote bag in my hand dyed yarns. This form of crochet is worked tightly, usually with a hook smaller than the recommended size for weight of yarn. It utilizes only the double crochet (single crochet) stitch and the fabric emulates a woven fabric so it is often not recognized as crochet. Two (or can be more) threads are used at the same time to create the pattern carrying the colours along the top of the stitches, this adds to the firmness of the fabric. For more info on this style of crochet and instructions see http://www.tapestrycrochet.com/. I made this bag at the end of 2007 out of a predominantly alpaca yarn. I don’t always line these bags because the fabric can be very sturdy, and non stretchy particularly if worked in cotton or linen.

Curlicues to finish.

2008-01-01T20:50:00.004+13:00

Well an evening spent crocheting 14 curlicues in the same yarn as the scarf and voila! One finished scarf.
makes a change from twisting a fringe. I'm already weaving the next one. Will do a few with crochet borders to carry on the theme.
Really hot today so we had a barbecue in the evening. Its been a great week weatherwise, lots of sunshine and warmth. One more day left before we go back to the daily grind of the workplace.

Two scarves.

2007-12-31T21:21:00.001+13:00

Two projects I'm working on at the moment. Ihis one is some handspun Suri alpaca I've spun and am in the process of weaving on a four shaft loom for the breeder of this animal. the colour is actually a light tan colour and it
really gleams as I work with it. there's a little bit of texture there, the alpaca had light coloured tips which have produced a slightly nubbly texture.

I dyed this wool yarn to produce long stripes of pattern by making a very long skein on my warping board and dip dyeing approximately two feet of yarn at a time.
I planned to weave a scarf using the same yarn for warp and weft.
Below are the results on the loom, which is a rigid heddle loom. I'm using a pick up stick to produce a repeatable pattern and provide a bit of texture.
The pattern produces a lace effect and keeps the weft open in places for a light fabric. always looks too open on the loom but i know washing the finished fabric should produce the handle I'm looking for.

Christmas got in the way but here are the birds.

2007-12-26T21:59:00.000+13:00

Well I was going to put entries on this blog regularly, but the last week has flown by. the day job requires a fair amount of my time at this time of the year. should get quieter next week.
I've been sorting through some of my tapestry crochet pieces. I find it quite inspiring looking at older pieces of work, seeing the direction I've taken and then maybe revisiting some of the abandoned ideas again. I wonder if its linked to this particular time of the year when you take stock ready for the New year?
This blanket was my daughter's baby blanket 15 years ago made from natural dyed handspun yarn. much of it 'singles', i.e. not plied yarn. Crocheted in half trebles (half double crochet). Worn rather well I think. Some of the colours have faded and changed in tone with the use and washing, but still looks pretty good. I was pondering on making up an indigo bath soon as I have a scarf I want to shibori dye so may as well put in some skeins of yarn to exhaust the dyebath.

Alpaca and merino heaven

2007-12-11T20:22:00.001+13:00

Since moving to NZ from the UK in 1998 I've truly gone to fibre heaven. Here's a pic of my more recent carded batts of alpaca blended with luscious merino and silk. I get to say hello to the alpacas up the road before stealing their fleece. Its alright though because they're growing some more. Some of it I've dyed although the brown is still in its natural state. I enjoy the whole process from sorting, washing, picking, dyeing etc, weird hey? Fortunately other spinners seem to like my fibre too, so I get create and play with more than my fair share of fleece:)