Fleece Felting

This is such fun! The result is amazing and the process is really satisfying. Hard work, sheep fleece smells and colours, planning and thinking, some more hard work rolling, a lot of water and soap, checking, and then... voila, a beautiful sheep fleece to be used for whatever you want, while the sheep is happily growing another fleece for next year's usage.

Yesterday I attended a fleece felting workshop. Honestly it has attracted me to learn to felt a whole fleece a long time now, but I would not know what to use the final fleece for. Then, the teacher of the workshop showed me that you can do a lot more when felting fleeces, e.g. you can felt several smaller pieces to be used a sitting cushions on a bench or chair. This was really attractive to me so yesterday I learnt how to do this. And here is the result:

The 'whole' fleece.

I dreamed of a light brown or brown-greyish fleece, not too big. Hennie, the teacher had a lot of fleeces to choose from: a gorgeous (and huge!) grey Racka fleece, several Oussant and Skudde fleeces in white, brown and black, white Dutch 'heideschapen' (also huge) and more which I do not remember. My choice was this chocolatebrown Oussant fleece with sunbleched tips on the neck and back.

I have parted it in two halves, for the sitting cushions, but you can still 'see' how the fleece has covered the back, neck and sides of the sheep before shearing.

This are the two separate sitting cushions:

The one to the right must be the tail side of the fleece. The shape is more square than the other halve. The side facing the grass is covered with brown mountain sheep fleece, much like the brown colour of the Oussant. This mountain sheep fleece is felted too and this keeps the Oussant fleece staples together.

The fleece in the pictureto the left must have been the neck side of the fleece. The side facing the grass is covered with a lighter colour of mountain sheep fleece, which you can see at the borders of it.

I feel that this is not the last time I attempt fleece felting!

Breirol, Knitting Roll or Stick Rulle

The Knitting Roll is finished! Here is a picture of the whole shawl (in two parts) showing all used knitting patterns:

The patterns come, from top to bottom, from the following sources:

1, 2 and 3 are a combination of knitting in rib, knitting 3 together and wrapping yarn around the needle, all three practically identical but with a different number of normal rows in between (the pattern row is knit every 8, 4 and 2 rows respectively). These I have learned from a member in my spinning group.
4 and 5 are alternating holes made by yarn wraps and knitting together, but this time the holes are not straight above each other but alternating. Also these are taught to me by the same member of the spinning group.
6 (second picture) is derived from an old knitting book containing only knitting patterns. No author is mentioned in the book and the name of the pattern is something like Rhomb-ribbing.
7 and 8 are mentioned as old knitting patterns and are explained in a book about knitting with Gotland wool, 'Ekoull och Gotländsk sticksöm' by Ulla Persson and Kicki Trodin. Kråkspark and Björklöv (birchleave) are the names of the patterns.
8 is from the same book as number 6 and is called Korenaar (´Ear of corn´ according to the on-line translator).
9 is the last pattern, again from the member of the spinning group. This pattern has the lace holes running in diagonals between vertical bars.

After this pattern I ran out of yarn, as the yarn is handspun by me of a Dorset sheep, there is no more to be obtained of the same kind so I bound of.

Now I will give the shawl to a dear friend who has said that she adores lace and loves this shawl.

Stickmönster

Förr i tiden fick man lära sig att sticka av mamma eller mormor. Stickmönster skulle man lära sig och sedan komma ihåg, eftersom det inte fanns mönsterböcker ännu. Som hjälp för att komma ihåg olika mönster gjordes dessa 'stickrullar', i alla fall i Nederländerna. 'Breirol' kallas de. En lång sjal med olika mönster, som förvarades upprullade på en papprulle. Då kunde stickerskan titta på den ibland när hon ville få fram ett nytt mönster i en sjal, tröja eller annat hon ville sticka.

Det blir många hål på olika sätt, som bildar olika mönster. Varje mönster skiljs åt med 4 rader rätstickning, i bilden ovan ser ni att tredje mönstret har precis blivit påbörjat. När den här är färdig kommer den inte att ligga upprullad på en papprulle, det skulle vara tråkigt att stoppa undan något så fint.

Garnet är ganska tunn två-trådig Dorset ull, från får i Småland, från gården Vadet för att vara precis. Det var vinterull och den var hur smutsig som helst och ganska kort. Inte idealiskt alltså men det blev en fin tråd av det i alla fall! Den är spunnen på min Louet Victoria.

Colors!

Since summer, when there was time, I spun small skeins of a lovely type of wool, long shiny curls, which, combed on mini combes and spun right of the combes, resultet in shiny miniskeins of white yarn. The length was each time something around 65-75 meters, perfect to have in storage for band-weaving.

Lately, the dyeing pot has been on the stove, to dye the skeins, one after the othe, in a relaxed and steady rythm. Dye a skein in the evening, let it cool down over night, and take it out of the pot the next evening. If there was time, the same procedure would be repeated that night, but if not- no problem, it was possible to wait for the next opportunity. And see here, what a lovely set of colors!

The upper yellow is dyed with onion peels, the others are dyed with acid dyes, that I mixed myself from red, yellow and blue. My experience is that the most beautiful colors are obtained when all three basic colors are used.

To the right, natural colors are shown, the 2 browns from Oessant sheep, the white from the same locks as the colored skeins. I really wish I knew what kind of sheep gave these curls!

Coming weeks, they will be transformed into some nice ribbons again, if and when the ribbon loom is available.

Band - ribbons

Nu har det blivit band av bland annat Ouessant fällen. Tillsammans med ett ljusare garn av en annan Ouessant, och vitt gar av ett okänt fårras.
Ena bandet vävdes med vanlig tuskaft, det andra med kort. Längst ner visas det 'vanliga' bandet'

Yes, two ribbons have been woven, with the dark brown Ouessant fleece and also a lighter Ouessant, and a white of unknown breed.
One of the ribbons is woven with an ordinary 'to and fro' technique, the other is made with use of cards. Below the 'ordinary' weaving is shown.

Band - Ribbons

All ull har sin användning. När jag nu hade fått Ouessant ull - mörkbrunt och lite ljusare så sökte jag efter ett användningsområde för täckhåren. Om man kammar dessa och spinner med mycket tvist, får man ett garn som vissa nog skulle kalla för snöre. Med en hel del glans. Starkt pga tvisten och längden på håren.

Detta skulle bli bra i band - starkt och inte luddigt. Sagt och gjort, i en lånad bandvävstol så blev 2 sorters band till: ett traditionellt men solv, varp och inslag, och ett gjort med brickbandsvävning.

Så här såg Ouessant ullen ut:

All wool has its uses. I received Ouessant fleece, dark brown and a somewhat lighter brown, and I was looking for good usage for this double-coated fleece. If you separate the outer coat while combing, and spin it with a lot of twist, you get something that certain people would call rope. With quite some shine. Strong because ot the twist and length of the hairs.

This would make good ribbons. Iborrowed a band weaving loom and made 2 types of ribbons: 1 traditional, and 1 with cards.

Above is a picture of the fleece.

Raku 2013

Raku med gruppen från Kunstlinie. Detta blev till:

Den vita glasyren har inte smält helt, men totalintrycket blev bra. Den turkosa är lite mindre, glasyren smälte bra och färgen är fin

 Jag kan inte låta bli att avbilda får!Och den röda Botz glasyren blir så otroligt vackar orange i raku, man kan knappt tro det