This turquoise, celadon and lavender yarn started as milk fibre from moonlightandlaughter and has a little story behind it...

After favouring the fibre on Etsy, I returned to look at the listing many times over several months, hoping for a discount that would justify buying it. It was so shiny with interesting greens and browns (not colours I usually am attracted to).


The day I returned to find it sold was very sad, and wished I'd bought it while I had the chance.

Then one day before Christmas I was at my friend's house and I spotted some shiny green fibre tucked away on a shelf. She had bought the fibre for my Christmas present! (as a chance gift without even knowing how much I had wanted it).
I spun the fibre into singles then plied it with cotton in an attempt to keep the colour true to the original braid. The best way to do this seemed to be to hold the single tight and allow the cotton to wrap around it. I don't think I quite did justice to the original, but the colour is mostly reflected in the finished yarn.

The last part of this fibre's journey is to find the perfect project. It's been at least a year and I still haven't discovered what it wants to be...

Like my bluestone and kookaburra handspun, this yarn started out from two complementary braids from jumbukjulie.

The braids were separated into piles of corresponding colours (three colours for this yarn), then spun into singles and double plied.



I tried a little sample of Navajo plying again with the scraps from this project, and it actually worked. Next time I get some coloured yarn I plan to try this type of plying for the full project. Any tips?

This handspun started from two complementary braids from jumbukjulie.


The braids were separated into piles of corresponding colours, then spun into blue singles and brown singles. Most of the singles were plied together as straight colours, but a middle section combined the two to create a gradient.

This project gave me some hope that bright coloured hand dyed fibre can be toned down a little for easier use in projects.

We are back from our travels and have got through the madness of the last weeks of work and Christmas. We had a fantastic time, and between visiting many castles and galleries I managed to seek out quite a bit of yarny goodness.
They had great samples knitted up from many of the yarns...
When leaving the shop a man stopped me in the street and said something I couldn't understand. It turned out I had bought so much wool the zip on my bag wasn't staying closed any more and things were spilling out :p
I also took a long Metro ride to the famous Loop in London. I picked up three pretty skeins but spent most of the time looking over all the colours :)

Going back to study has somewhat dampened my blogging schedule, but have been meaning to report back on our adventures at the Bendigo sheep and wool show.
The website gave us no indication how exciting the show would be. I had thought perhaps we might get to browse a few stalls of woolly goodness. Turned out there were five large sheds of beautiful yarn and fleece!
It was wonderful to discover some Australian based indie shops, and finally be able to experience the excitement I am always hearing about on podcasts!
Our favourite shops were Moseley Park, Raxor, Spun out, Ixchel Angora Bunny, and Wool n wire

I am terrible at actually buying things, and can talk myself out of anything, but I came away with a nice little collection.We also visited the Bendigo Woollen Mills while there, and I picked up some staple colours.

I've perhaps been doing more queuing than knitting recently. Things have been rather stressful, and I haven't blogged as much as I'd like. If you'd like some more yarny (and tasty recipe) goodness, I've been enjoying bonitoclub's blog every day of June.

In the queue
Maluka by Bea Schmidt
Vlad by Laura Chau (about 3 repeats in)

I thought I'd post up my wips today :)
Harumi shawl (rav link) by Emily Ross is up the back, and just needs to be properly photographed.

Amelia by Laura Chau is down the front right. It is taking a while to knit up but I've almost finished the body, then just need to do the sleeves.

Clearly I'm still obsessed with teal. I'm not super happy with the variegation in our handdyed teal yarn when knit up, but I'll still enjoy the colours while wearing the gloves and cowl that are in progress :)

A yarn dyeing adventure with Slightly Squiffled equals the teal/black I had been wanting to make for ages!
It turned out more speckled than I'd hoped, but i hope to have another play one day and make a darker more blended version with thinner yarn.
And I also made some blue-y black
And she gave me this yarn, as she was less fond of the colour, but I think it's awesome, what do you think?

These little lollies may look innocent, but they have made my last week of holidays very painful
Ever since our 2005 trip, I remembered Tasmania as a land of tasty green sour lollies. This time, lured into a wonderful house of sweets, my eyes fell upon these super sour green apple delights.

I put the first in my mouth and it literally burned. After eating it for less than 10 seconds I had to stop, and five days later I could barely eat anything - my dinners uneaten, my nougat pudding abandoned :(

I suspect something was wrong with the sweets (perhaps out of date and very potent for it). I guess I have learnt my lesson and will steer clear of anything labelled 'super super sour' in future :/

We did manage, however to buy something a bit more yummy in Tas - some Ella Rae Lace Merino from Tasmanian Woollen Co in Salamanca Place - yum!

I was working from home today after a nasty bout of the flu and saw the postie drop off a parcel for me from WildFireFibres ^_^

Eee ^_^ thanks so much Bonito Club for letting me borrow your ball winder so that I could make all my yarn into cute little squishy pucks. I had to wind up some my handspun and my birthday socks-that-rock and dyeforwool yarn. I did it for a bit too long and Friday night vanished into yarn winding and Scarlet Pimpernel watching :p
Am going to wind some of SlightlySquiffled's handspun too once it's dry :)