** NEEDLEWORK'S PLEASURE** SPINNING & FELTING FIBRES, HANDSPUN & HANDPAINTED YARNS

It has taken a very long time but here it is, my latest OOAK extra soft handpainted and handspun Merino yarn design - FATA MORGANA, and what a beauty it has become!! It took forever for this wool to dry, and only within the past 3 days did it actually loose all the moisture - I can tell you, it's not an easy job getting yarns and fleeces dried in Northern England, where the sun doesn't shine very often... But I can't really complain. The past few days have been gorgeous, warm, sunny, yes, indeed, SUMMER!! Now, here are some pics of my Fata Morgana, which is displayed in my Etsy Store at www.alltheprettyfibers.etsy.com - feel free to view all my other yarns and rovings there :o)

Everyone have a very good bank holiday weekend!!

Hi everyone!

I have just finished loading pictures of my new handpainted bfl rovings and also of some newly handspun slub yarns, that I have now all displayed in my ebay store! Have a look and Visit My eBay Store for more fibre details!

The dark green slub yarn is an awsome colour, don't you think? It is such a vibrant dark green, and it was my last lot of this particular colour  :o(

The new lot is one whole shade brighter and makes a vibrant grass green.

I took half a day off last week and went walking with Sam in the Caldbeck area , which is located at the very Northern tip of the Lake District - BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! It is one of my favourite places to go, and it's the place where you will also find the "Woolclip", a craft store that sells handspun, hand dyed and handwoven yarns and items made from loacal sheep breeds, yummy!! I always visit them to see what's new, and I always admire their handwoven cushions and throws. Weaving is something that I have put on my wishlist to start within the next few years. I will need to find extra time to actually properly learn it, so for now I have to put it off... sigh....

Here are some photos of Caldbeck and my favourite walk along the Caldbeck river which leads you through a short but fairy tale like gorge and past the ruins of a bobbin mill:

Hi everyone!

For the past week I haven't had any time to pop in and show you some of my latest yarn and fiber designs - things were quite chaotic with lots of special orders coming in and also lots and lots of people having inquiries which needed answering, so it's been spinning, dyeing, packing, PC, post office, spinning, dyeing, packing, PC, post office.... yepp...no time for anything else, really. BUT today I have displayed a new super soft handspun Merino yarn design  in my Etsy store, which I have called "Jade Dragon". Oh it so deserves the name - lots and lots of aqua shades and dragon like ply patterns can be found in that fingering weight skein :o) Here it is:

once knitted it will bring out large layers of different blue and purple mixes - GREAT!! Hey, perhaps I will receive some photos from whoever will purchase this particular yarn, I would absolutely love to see what was done with the "Jade Dragon"!!

I have also added a new shade of dyed Leicester fleece/locks to my range of fleeces in my ebay store, it is a grass green:

and a good shade lighter and brighter than my leaf green. Come and  Visit My eBay Store for more details! Right, I'm off again to finish a skein of a new elfyarn design. I will show you the pictures of it as soon as it is ready for display -  BE SURPRISED!!

Yesterday was such a fine and sunny day!!! Those days are ever so rare up here, so I did pack up Sam and went out for a day into the countryside. I first took a nice stroll at one of my favourite places, Gelt Water near Hayton. And later I thought that there was still time to visit Aydon castle near Corby after all :o) I have taken some very nice photos. The first 4 are from the walk at Gelt Water:

It really was a wonderful day, and Sam and I had a great time!!

Here are my latest handpainted Merino wool rovings and also a new set of handpainted Wensleydale locks which I have all displayed in my Etsy store:

The locks are as always most suitable for adding to felting projects, dollmaking and handspinning! I hope you like the colours I have chosen this time :o)

Finally the sun has come out - god, I thought I would never get my fleeces dried this year!! So far this year's summer leaves much to be desired for, at least in Northern England. We are not blessed with many hot summer days up here anyway, and honestly I can certainly do without oven hot and humid seasons, but a liiiiiitttle bit of warm sunshine would be much appreciated! Let's see what Thursday is going to be like - I have made plans to drive towards Corbridge, visit Aydon Castle and hopefully take a very long and nice walk through the surrounding country site, if the weather is good enough...

Anyway, I have just displayed a new ooak handspun and handpainted yarn design on Etsy. This time I have used my 21 micron extra soft Merino wool, just for a change... :o) I have called the yarn "Ring-A-Ring-A-Roses". I hope you like it!

I have made up 3 bags of handpainted super soft Merino fleece wool, 18microns and yummy soft :o) Those are my last lots, so I am selling them at a low price of $10.00 per bag in my Etsy store at www.alltheprettyfibers.etsy.com . Feel free to have a look, the colours are goregous:

And I have listed my third "Cirque Du Soleil" yarn design made from a commercially dyed 18micron super soft Merino wool. It is also displayed on Etsy.

I think this week I will take one day off and go walking with Sam - I am quite frustrated about the new outbreak of foot and mouth down South :o( and I really really really really hope that it will not spread again this time. Perhaps it was indeed an escaped bug from that veterinary lab. nearby the farm where the virus broke out. They blame it on the flood waters that the bug could have been carried out. Honestly I don't care what the cause was, I only hope that this bug will be contained quickly and safely and return to the petri dish where it belongs to make vaccines from it . I just wish the government would have vaccinated all the healthy beasts 6 years ago, and all the slaughtering of millions of animals could have been avoided. WHAT A SHAME AND WHAT A WASTE IT WAS... yes, I am frustrated about all this indeed, and I will so pack up my dog and my rucksack and go walking in the hills and let my spinning wheel rest as well.

EVERYONE HAVE A VERY GOOD WEEK! :O)

Some of you may have already noticed that I have changed some important details of my elfyarns - I used to categorise them as fingering weight because I felt that the yardage was closer (but still exeeding) to fingering weight than laceweight. Over here in the UK there is another yarn size category called "cobweb weight" which, according to the commercial yarn size categories, is equivalent to what U.S. spinners and knitters call "laceweight". One cobweb weight skein of 25g (0.9oz) measures around 365 yds of yarn (some more ,some less), and they are usually single ply yarns. If I wanted to follow that scheme further down and take two threads of cobweb weight/laceweight yarn together I would get to what is called "4-ply weight" yarn, which indeed would fit the yarn size of my elfyarns = ~760yds/3.6oz perfectly!!

As far as I can see no other spinner/knitter/yarn seller is ever using this term of "4-ply weight", and I really wonder if people will understand what yarn size I am talking about if I categorise my elfyarns as "4-ply weight". Nevertheless, I will give it a go as I really feel that I am misleading and confusing people if I continue to make my yarns laceweight when in truth they are not.

I will place a yarn size link on my website for people to read through. It will tell them the weight-yardage-needle size relation of each category, and I will probably just put the cobweb weight and laceweight in the same pot!

If anyone has more information about this please do let me know, I am trying very hard to build a UK/US yarn-category bridge here... :o)