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

Here comes my new lot of handpainted Wensleydale locks/curls, wonderfully lustrous, very soft, and perfect for felting projects, doll hair, dwarf beards, and handspinning very special novelty yarns!! All three lots are displayed in my ebay store where you can find a wide range of handpainted fleeces and Wensleydale locks! So come and Visit My eBay Store :o)

I am currently trying really hard to finish 2 new yarn designs, and I am slowly getting there. Autumn is always the start of the yarn season, and I have already been receiving a lot of custom orders which need to be attended to, and which means that other yarn designs will be put on hold for the time being. But before I start on one custom order of 1lb of handspun Alpaca yarn I will finish my last skein of handpainted and handspun ultra soft Elfyarn, I simply want to see this design finished in all its splendor!!! So tonight I will be working on that. I have also just finished painting one Merino roving for a custom yarn similar to my "An Orchard" lambswool design on my website, only that the new lot will be a slub yarn! I am always excited about custom orders that require painting and setting those colours together in a particular way - once it is finished I will display it on my blog too :o)

Everyone have a very good weekend!!!

Okay, I forgot to mention my latest handpainted Merino yarns yesterday, when I wrote my blog about the new handpainted rovings, sorry about that... Well, here they are in their full splendor :o), my fingering weight pure Merino knitting yarns, painted with non toxic dyes and mordants and not treated with any chemicals (like e.g. superwash wool)!

NEMO

LENORE

ROSEWOOD

AUTUMN LEAVES

HARVEST TIME

They all contain wonderful autumn shades in one way or another, even NEMO shows the colours of the wonderful blue sky we have had for weeks during October, it has been an absolutely fantastic and colourful month so far!!! Can't ask for more to give me inspiration en masse :o)

Here are my latest handpainted beauties, fresh from the dyepot :o) They are both extra soft Merino wool rovings and will make fantastic close to the skin handspun yarns and beautiful felt projects! I have displayed them in my ebay store so come and Visit My eBay Store for more fibre information! Here are some photos:

I am also currently working on new handspun and handpainted yarn designs :o) One of them will be another set of gorgeous and ultra soft Merino-Silk Elfyarn, and another one a very colourful Bluefaced Leicester cosy yarn design. I will display them in my Etsy store and on my blog as soon as they are finished.....be surprised!!! :oD

Here comes my latest handpainted and handspun Baby Alpaca knitting yarn, a whopping 4.4oz with 400yds in it, so that's plenty to work with indeed! :o) I went for another range of water shades plus sage this time. I have called the design "Water Nymph IV", have a look:

Alpaca wool always makes wonderful yarns that drape like a dream because it is not bouncy like sheep wool. This yarn would make e.g. a fabulous lace shrug!!!! If it doesn't get sold I will knit a lace shrug from it for myself :oD - the colourway would go brilliantly with one of my  long autumn skirts in dark blues, greys and sage!! "Water Nymph IV" is displayed in my Etsy store www.alltheprettyfibers.etsy.com , feel free to have a look for more yarn details!

Everyone, I would like to leave a small alert message on my blog for all who use PayPal as method of payment:

Every once in a while some "smartheads" try to rob people by sending them fake PayPal messages, the logo is there, the colours and the layout look exactly like PayPal, but it's NOT a PayPal message at all! Today I received a spam message saying that my account had been limited...nothing new, they have sent me messages like that several times before, but in the beginning when I was very new to PayPal I did indeed once click on such a link to get rid of that so called "limitation" only to find that there was no access at all, and I realised very fast that I had just given away my password! So I very very quickly went directly into www.paypal.com and changed my password...and no harm was done...phew!!!!

I have been sending and receiving payments through PayPal for almost 5 years now, and never ever had any problems, nor any hackers accessing my account. It is a completely safe place to do your transactions as long as you never give out your password to anyone - PayPal will never ask you for it! Any real PayPal messages will always greet you by your first and last name, which is perfect proof that the e-mail came indeed from them, the internet criminals wouldn't know your full name registered on PayPal, they only have your e-mail address.

I have simply forwarded the fake message to [email protected] , and I really hope that they will be able to trace those suckers down, FAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And now I would very much like to introduce my lates art yarn design.....YUMMY, YUMMY!!  It's a handspun Bluefaced Leicester yarn plied with tons of gorgeously soft and fluffy hand painted BFL curls. I have called the design "Mimi", have a look:

Gorgeous, don't you think? It would make e.g. a wonderful cosy neckwarmer/scarflette!! I have displayed it in my Etsy store at www.alltheprettyfibers.etsy.com , feel free to have a look :o)

Finally, oh, finally I have finished and displayed my latest handpainted and handspun yarn beauties!!! It was about time too, but one of them, my "Lady In Waiting", was ever so labour intensive, you wouldn't believe it! It is made from the finest and softest Bluefaced Leicester lambswool blended with super smooth pure Tussah silk, and this blend did not spin as easily as the regular BFL wool with its wonderful long fibres. The lambswool fibres were a good deal shorter, and it took me 14 hours just to spin and ply that baby :o) But look at the result, isn't it just breathtaking?

What do you think? ;o) I have displayed this yarn in my Etsy store at www.alltheprettyfibers.etsy.com , so feel free to visit my shop for more yarn details.

I also finished this wonderfully soft and cosy BFL yarn design, called "Charybdis II":

the colourscheme is quite similar to my first "Charybdis" yarn design which you can view on my website www.needleworks-pleasure.com . And yep, lots and lots of aquamarine and turquoise going on in there :oD I just love to work with those shades!

And last but not least I have also added one new handpainted extra soft BFL wool roving for all the handspinners and felters out there. It is also displayed in my Etsy store:

The shades of the roving are wonderfully deep and warm, perfect for an autumn yarn or felt design!!

Right, let me go back to my spinning wheel and finish a veeeeery gorgeous and cosy Baby Alpaca yarn, soon to be displayed here on my blog! Be surprised!!

Everyone have a very good weekend and HAPPY FIBERCRAFTING!

Hi everyone,

god, wasn't it a GORGEOUS GORGEOUS october week up here in the North so far?! Today I took half a day off (I really had to!!!), the warm sun and the clear blue sky was too tempting, so after preparing some fibre for the dyeing process later on in the evening I packed up Sam and the camera, and off we went to Little Salkeld, near Penrith, to visit Long Meg and her daughters, an ancient druids circle in the middle of nowhere and miles and miles of countryside to be walked :o) If you ever come to the Penrith area, which is really close to the Lake District, do come to Little Salkeld, especially if you want to visit beautiful historic places where you don't want stand in a queue, or find yourself in a crowd of tourists and walkers! It is one of my absolute favourite places to go and visit, spend a day outside and walk through the fields and meadows, and to visit the old watermill in the village, that makes organic flour, and has the most adorable tearoom with good food and drink as well!!! Here are some photos of today's visit at Long Meg's:

That's Long Meg, a tall standing stone outside the wide druids circle, so wide in fact, that I have never managed to get the circle into one picture :o)

Noone really knows what this stone circle was once used for, which is kind of nice I'd say...allows your imagination to run completely wild... :oD

Yep, one really happy Sam!

Be prepared to come across some very laid back and friendly cattle when you walk the country side. They really are harmless.

And those 2 beauties are grazing on land that seems to belong to St.Michael's church (not sure though), which can be visited during the day...no entrance fee...just walk in and be silent...you will find some very pretty and colourful church windows there!

That's the old watermill in Little Salkeld - I always stop by there for a meal before I drive back home...you MUST try their watermill rarebit!!! Y-U-M-M-Y!!

The owner of the mill, Ana Balfour, also keeps her own small livestock of beautiful Suffolk sheep. She has their fleeces processed and spun at a yarn mill in Wales, then hand dyes the yarns with natural plant dyes and knits wonderful jumpers, cardigans, gloves, hats, etc. from the wool. They are very colourful indeed, and her knitwork is superb!

That's her flock of happy little sheep...

...and a placid gang of goats... ;o)

I hope you like the photos and will decide to come and visit the beautiful far North of England at one stage! You would certainly not regret it if you are a country person and enjoy nature, mountains, and fresh clean air!!

I will soon display the new yarn designs that I am currently working on - I so enjoy spinning my latest blend of super soft Bluefaced Leicester - YES, you read correctly, SUPER SOFT Bluefaced Leicester (that I believed could not get any softer!), combed with finest silk, which can only lead to one thing: The most gorgeous handspun yarns ever to come to you ... VERY SOON! Be surprised :o)

Everyone have a very good weekend!

I have made up 2 new creativity mixed bags of a WHOPPING 360g (12.9oz) and 320g (11.4oz)!! Those bags are packed with wonderful fibres, such as pure Merino of different micron counts (soft/extra soft/super soft), pure Bluefaced Leicester wool, pure silks, yarns, silk rod pieces, dyed fleeces, camel down.......THOSE BAGS ARE INDEED A TREAT FOR EVERY FIBRE MAD PERSON!! :o) Come and Visit My eBay Store for more details.

Here are some pics, 1&2 and 3&4 show the front and back of the same bag:

the bags will give you plenty to work with, and you can easily divide them for several fibre projects. They are equally suitable for handspinning wonderful yarns and for felting projects! I hope you like what I have put together :o)

Everyone have a very good week!!!!!! :oD