Spinning a rainbow/Regenbogen spinnen

I'm spinning again - enjoing the very, very last late summer days with the spinnig wheel outside in the garden - spinning more of that beautiful handdyed wool from Susa (earlier posting here).



It's funny how different a yarn can turn out, depending on the plying thread used. For the rainbow roving, I first used a thin matching thread for plying - and wasn't convinced at all:



So I searched my stash and found a ball of lace yarn (Schoppel Crazy Ball) and plied my rainbow Masham wool once more with that (ah yes, I mixed in some dark blue wool at an end too) - and suddenly, I could really see the rainbow coming through!

Due to the different colour sequences in the plying yarn, there were exciting new colour combinations - made me think of the Hundertwasser colour scheme here and there -



The next is a very light-coloured Cheviot roving, which I'm planning to use for a plain Victorian lace shawl - I'm plying it with a vintage rosé silk thread (one more of those rayon silk threads dated 1936 which I found in my mother's cellar a couple of years ago!) It will be a gift for a friend of mine.



And for the last one, a Falkland wool - the colours are deeper and more 'cloudy' in real! - I've spun it in a soft thick & thin manner, plying it with two skinny wool threads.

I'm not sure what to knit out of this yet - it's very fluffy and delicate, so it would be quite suitable for some kind of shoulder shawl too - and even if I already have some, I still adore those kind of wraps now that the nights are getting colder ...



Of course, I'm not a spinning artist like Jana, who I admire very much indeed - but at least I'm beginning to feel that I'm getting closer to controlling the spinning wheel (and not vice versa :-) - and that I can at least roughly make it produce the yarn I'm aiming at. I'm so glad I bought that wheel and just kept on trying until it worked out!

(German summary: Ich spinne wieder - wunderbar gefärbte Wolle von Susa - und freue mich, daß ich damals das Spinnrad gekauft und einfach so lange herumprobiert habe, bis ich annehmbar spinnen konnte - es ist so eine Freude!)

A basket full of inspiration/Einen Korb voller Inspiration

So I'm back from my trip to Sara, filled to the brim with fresh inspiration and some new yarns and threads in my basket.

Due to the Icelandic ash clouds and the shut-down of the airport in Stockholm, Sara's Swedish guests had their flight cancelled; thus the two of us had lots of spare time to talk and exchange ideas, to work in the studio, visit the local pub and to do some shopping (at yarn shops and a textile thrift store ;-)).



First we had planned to do some dyeing, but as Sara went through her stash of already dyed threads and the weather was too windy and chilly for our purpose, she generously told me to pick a big bunch of her threads and forget about dyeing this time -
I'm overwhelmed with my treasure!



Anyway, the dyeing project is just postponed, not cancelled!

We also played around with a pincushion project, using a waste Chinese garlic basket which we stuffed with some weights, foam, wool and then embellished and embroidered.

While Sara was working on her wall hanging, I used the time for sewing two organizer rolls for my crochet hooks and knitting equipment, using fabric scraps and some of those beautiful threads:



Returning home, I find the summer to have arrived here in the South - my house and my garden are calling out loud for being attented to and there is such a lot of work to do - still my head is filled with colours and yarn and threads ...



(German summary: Da Sara's Workshop auch der Aschenwolke zum Opfer fiel, hatten wir unverhofft Zeit für andere Projekte - sie arbeitete an ihrem neuen Stück weiter, ich habe mir u.a. zwei Stoffrollen für meine Strick- und Häkelnadeln genäht, je ein Nadelkissen haben wir gemeinsam ausprobiert. Neue Wolle habe ich auch im Gepäck mit nach Hause, einen Korb voll mit wunderschönen, handgefärbten Stickgarne, die mir Sara geschenkt hat - und jede Menge neue Ideen und Inspirationen!)

All shades of grey/Graubunte Fäden

A friend asked me if I wanted some threads, which had been left behind by a lodger who had moved on. "Threads? Yeah, sure," I said.

Well, here they are, and I'm now trying to figure out what to do with them.

Straight threads, entangled threads, wound threads, all different shades of grey. A metaphor for life.



Among the threads there were three rope-like items - neat threads wound around thick strands of other threads - and I started with them, sewing them together like for a bowl, trivet, mat ...



I also tried out the threads on my daughter's flower loom (when googling about flower looms, I learned that this is a revival tool from the '70:s - didn't know that!).

I like the flowers best when they're a bit sloppy and not too neat - and this seems to be the perfect stuff for that look! I could imagine how great a waist-coat or a belt would be with these flowers - maybe with a felted center to it as well ...

What I enjoy about these threads is that there are several matching shades and that there is such a lot of material! This gives me the opportunity to play and experiment with them, considering punching the whole entangled batt with the embellisher as a 'filling embroidery' to the fabric background ...

Thinking of seaweed, drift wood, a harbour fence, a coral reef ...

Sea shore and maritime motifs are definitely connected to my summer feelings. The blue and greyish shades of the threads - in combination with different white fibers - maybe with some natural found objects like sea shells and drift wood - would most certainly make a good arrangement.

I think I would like to work on that.

(German summary: Ich habe einen ganzen Haufen Baumwollfäden in verschiedenen Grautönen bekommen - und überlege, was ich damit machen könnte. Ein paar dicke, umwickelte Stränge waren schon dabei - die hab' ich gleich zusammengenäht. Mit dem "Blumengerät" (Prym) meiner Tochter probierte ich einige 'schlampigen' Blumen aus - da eignen sich die verworrenen Fäden sehr gut - und ich könnte mir diese als ärmellose Weste oder auch als Gürtel gut vorstellen ... Zuletzt noch ein paar Experimente mit dem Embellisher - in maritimer Richtung. Eine Kombination mit weißen Fasern und einigen Naturfundstücken würde sicher ein recht nettes Bild ergeben!)