mercatino

 

 

Isn't this exciting?!!! I can't wait!!!!

 

 

Quick translation:

Hand spinning and market of natural yarns

 

Rewind the thread of time to rediscover the poetry of an almost forgotten art; the hand spinning of Deborah Gray.

Casicina Alessi is proud to invite you to a knitting day with Deborah Gray, Scottish spinner of international fame, Aogi Y. Bera and Elbert Espeleta, craft dyers with their rare and marvellous yarns.

On the programme: knitting cafe, workshop of hand spinning, exhibition-market of natural yarns and tastings of organic produce.

We expect you on 22nd March 2013 from 10.00 to 17.00

Where: Cascina Alessi, Vernia Po (Pavia)

Locks

A couple of experiments incorporating locks of beautiful Wensleydale fleece into handspun yarn.

More on this later.....!

Fractal

I've been exploring different ways of spinning multicoloured fibres and this post is about FRACTAL SPINNING.
This sounds as if it should involve lots of complicate maths, but thankfully it doesn't, it is a way of managing a multicoloured tops so that the colours show up well in the finished yarn and don't end up a disappointingly muddy mixture.

The story starts with a hand-dyed top - Choc Choc Cherry from easyknits.com. I had 80g left from a sock spining and knitting project completed about a year ago. The fibre is 80% merino, 20% nylon (to make it hard wearing for socks). This batch was custom dyed for me by Jon (easyknitter) because I ran out of the first batch before I finished the socks.

I split the tops in half along its length, and for the first (A) single I spun one half from one end, worsted style and quite high twist, to give a 30 wraps per inch singles. Each colour section was quite long and shaded gradually into the next colour.

For the second (B) single I split the other half of the tops, again along its length, into eight rovings.

Being careful to spin them all from the same end I spun them one after another to the same thickness and twist as the first singles. Because the roving was so much thinner the colour sections were a lot shorter, they followed the same sequence as in the first single but the sequence was repeated eight times.

Then I simply plied the two singles, putting in enough twist to create a balanced two-ply yarn measuring 16 wraps per inch. All the spinning and plying was done on an Ashford traveller using the 15:1 ratio, so it was easy to get the medium-high twist I was aiming for. I would have put in more twist if I had been making a sock yarn.

Where the two plies are the same colour it produces a section of 'solid' colour, but the
'A' colour is also combined with the other colours from the B single in sequence, giving different barber-pole effects,before the A colour changes and produces a different solid colour.

I knitted the hap shawl using Kate Davies' Northmavine Hap pattern, from her lovely book Colours of Shetland.

The original design has narrow stripes of five different colours, which is beautiful but means there are a lot of ends to sew in. My fractal yarn also gives a stripey effect which shows off the undulations of the Old Shale lace variation, but from a continuous yarn.

I had 318 metres of yarn so my hap is a bit smaller than Kate's design, which uses nearly 600 metres, but it is a fine size for a scarf or shoulder wrap.

After I blocked it I had fun taking photos of it outside in the snow.

 I like the ones of it hanging against the wintery sky.

Attrezzatura di filatura – Offerta speciale

Attrezzatura di filatura – Offerta speciale - Corso a Pavia marzo 2013

Per il mio corso di filatura a Pavia in Marzo 2013 ho l’opportunita’ di una spedizione all’ingrosso di attrezzatura di filatura a mano, sopratutto dalla gamma Ashford. Quindi faccio una offerta speciale, prezzi scontato e senza costo di spedizione dal UK. Se desidera comprare qualcosa a questi prezzi speciali, fammi sapere apenna possibile.

Da ordinare entro e non oltre 22 Febbraio, con pagamento per PayPal, l’attrezzatura arrivera’ a Pavia prima del corso.

Spedizione da Pavia sia possibile a costo extra.                                                                                    

Per fare un ordine, o se hai alcune domande, mandami un mail: deborah.gray7@btinternet.com

                                                                                    Prezzo normale                  Offerta

Libro – Filatura a mano: come creare

            bei filati. Deborah Gray © 2011                          €16.50                        €15.00

 

Fuso – semplice, fuseruola basso                                      13.00                          11.50

fatto a mano in Scozia

 

Fuso – deluxe, fuserola basso legno duro,                        28.00                          25.50

           manico con cardo Scozzese in legna

 

Cardatori  a mano     (paio)   72pt                                       49.50                          45.00

 

Cardatoro a tamburo Ashford 72 pt o 36pt                        500.00                        470.00

 

Niddy Noddy Ashford                                                           25.00                          22.50

 

Filatoio Ashford Kiwi2 single drive, double treadle          368.00                        340.00

(sliding hook flyer) + 3 bobine

 

Filatoio Ashford Traveller single drive,                               535.00                        490.00

double treadle  + 4 bobine

 

Filatoio Ashford Traditional single drive,                            549.00                       505.00

single treadle  + 4 bobine & lazy kate

 

Molla di freno                                                             3.00                            2.70

 

Nastro Kiwi                                                                            13.00                          11.70

 

Bobina Ashford (standard – Traveller o Traditional)         13.00                          11.70

 

Bobina Ashford Kiwi 2                                                         13.00                          11.70

 

Ashford Kiwi high ratio kit    (per filati sottili =lace )          34.00                          30.00

 

Jumbo flyer kit Kiwi + 1 bobina  (per filati grossi)             151.00                        135.00

 

Jumbo flyer kit Trad/Trav deluxe+ 3 bobine                       188.50                       172.00

 

Bobina Ashford jumbo                                                          20.30                          17.70