Heather Knits

I had a lovely time last week at Knit Nation. Luckily my foot was much better and I was pretty much completely mobile (it has improved even more since then, and my foot is only slightly swollen now, and the blister is healing quite well). I went up to London on Wednesday evening, and checked into the hall of residence so that I didn’t have to drag the wheel through rush hour traffic in order to get to my Thursday morning class.

Thursday I had an all day class on Spinning for Lace with Janel Laidman. She was lovely and knowledgeable yet relaxing and I had a great day. We spent the morning fiddling with our wheels and our techniques, trying out different things, like changing the speed at which we treadled, changing the ratio on the wheel, and changing the tension going on to the bobbin. It is definitely something I am going to be experimenting more with. I was also surprised at how much I loved the highest speed ratio on my wheel. I had been concerned that it would run away with me and I wouldn’t be able to keep up, but actually when you are spinning fairly fine yarns it is really handy, since the likelihood of the yarn not having enough twist and drifting apart is much reduced.

Here we are, all concentrating hard:

And here is my rather wonky efforts from the first part of the morning:

The fibre was a lovely 70% bluefaced leicester/ 30% silk mix. Lovely to spin, I shall definitely be on the look out for something similar.

After that we learnt longdraw, something I had tried before with little success, so it was great to be able to try again and pick up some more tips. My longdraw is still not terribly convincing but I am at least making yarn this time In the afternoon we got to play with several different luxury fibre mixes. Another very enjoyable and useful experience.

We all came away with very useful cards with information about what we had done and samples of our spinning. I shall definitely be using these to keep a better track of my future projects. I am hoping that tying my project card to my wheel whilst working on a project will help me stay a bit more consistent too!

The afternoon’s fibres were 70% merino / 30% silk, 80% merino / 20% tencel, a mixed fibre batt, 50% alpaca / 50% tussah silk, and 100% Mongolian cashmere (I think I need a lot more practise with the cashmere ).

Thursday evening was the market preview. Wow! what a lot of lovely stuff! It was fantastic to see so many lovely yarns, fibres, and various knitting and spinning accessories, and of course to see all the wonderful people who sell them. I did not come away unscathed (what a surprise!). These lovely goodies came home with me:

400g of 70% alpaca / 30% bluefaced leicester fibre from John Arbon:

100g of New Zealand Polwarth in TreeHugger by BabyLongLegs:

100g of supersorted BFL in TangyDoodleTastic again from BabyLongLegs:

A 300g skein of Wollmeise Lace yarn in Grashüpfer (which I am assuming probably means grasshopper):

2 balls of Biggan Design‘s new 4ply in Colour 630:

I am really thrilled that she is making a 4ply now. It is great to see such lovely colours in a nice soft yarn in both 4ply and DK weight.

And finally some fun stitchmarkers from The Bothered Owl:

After all the excitement I staggered off to bed to get some sleep before the next day’s classes.

On Friday morning I went to Wonders of Wool with Clara Parkes. Unfortunately half an hour into the class there was a fire alarm and we had to trudge down the 5 flights of stairs of the Physics building we were in and assemble in the car park. However this was an excellent excuse to continue the rest of the class at one of the large picnic tables in the quad outside the market place.

Clara has a photo of me and the lovely lady from Boston I was sitting next to (who I have unfortunately forgotten the name of ) up on her review of Knit Nation (why is it that I am always talking on photographs?).

As well as learning lots about different kinds of wool from all around the world we got to knit up samples of several very varied wools from different sheep, spun in different ways.

Here is the sample before I washed it:

From the white cast on end these are:

• Saxon merino from Catskill Merino. This one feels gorgeous, a jumper in this would be fantastic
• Wensleydale. A little scratchy for me, although it softened up quite a bit after washing.
• Columbia, which is a mix of Rambouillet and Lincoln Longwool, woollen spun, from Imperial Stock Ranch.

• Columbia, worsted spun from the same fibre source. It was really interesting to observe the differences between the same fibre spun in different ways. This would make great socks. I hadn’t come across Columbia before, and really love both the yarns.
• Dorset down, woollen spun. Springy yarn which bounces back well, I found it a little harsh.

• Finn. Another one I hadn’t tried before, surprisingly nice, a bit similar to Shetland.
• Shetland, woollen spun, from Garthenor Organic. This is the softest Shetland I have ever met, a very nice yarn.

• Icelandic. I found it rather hairy.
• California Red. A really interesting yarn, whitish with occaisional dark red fibres, it felt rather hairy.

• Perendale. Not that keen on this one, a little bit scratchy.

• Columbia worsted spun with some different stitch patterns.

• Columbia woollen spun with some different stitch patterns.

This was a great way to try out lots of different types of wool yarns and I learnt a lot. I definitely see some of the merino, Columbia and Shetland in my future

In the afternoon I was back with Clara, this time for her class on the Wonders of British Wool. Unfortnately my photos taken during the class are dark and blurry so you will have to imagine interested people listening to Clara in a physics classroom

We did more sampling and this is what I produced:

Here is the unwashed sample:

From the cream cast on end these are:

• Bluefaced leicester. One of my favourite fibres
• Teeswater. This feels a bit like Wensleydale. It holds the structure of the stitches well, but I find it a bit scratchy.

• Southdown. Very dense and springy, I was surprised how much I liked this one and will definitely be looking into trying some more.
• Dorset. This was the same as the sample from the morning’s class. It is not quite as dense, springy, or soft as the Southdown.

• Swaledale. Very scratchy, made me think of rope!
• Manx Loghtan. I have had a go spinning and knitting with this before and it is a very nice fibre. Quite rustic but still soft and I love the colour.
• Shetland. This was the same lovely Shetland from the morning, and I still loved it

Another very interesting class, and a great introduction to lots of the different kinds of British wool. I shall definitely be having more of a play with several of these. Especially when I buy a lot of my yarns and fibres mail order or over the internet it is very valuable to know which breeds of wool I do and don’t like.

Friday evening was the Ravelry talk. It was really interesting to hear more about the origins and future plans, and the nuts and bolts, from the horses mouth. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures as at that point I had a roaring headache In all the excitement I failed to drink enough on Thursday and got a bit dehydrated, and even drinking 6 litres of water on Friday hadn’t put off the inevitable headache. Stupidly although I had brought loads of plasters and antihistamines and steriods for my bite on my ankle, I had totally failed to bring any painkillers. Luckily Lisa was a total life saver and gave me some she had in her bag and after half an hour I was feeling so much better.

While we were hanging around in the quad trying to decide what we wanted to have for dinner we noticed that the sun had lit up the tower a most amazingly pinky-orange.

My picture doesn’t quite capture the way the light made the stone glow. Beautiful.

And to round off a wonderful day I had dinner with Lisa, Terri, and Kathryn. Just what the doctor ordered, a nice meal among wonderful and interesting friends

Saturday was an all day class with Judith MacKenzie McCuin on Spinning for Socks. In the morning we each chose 5 colours of merino and practised blending the colours while spinning worsted style. I was having some trouble with my hands sticking to the fibre so I think I shall have to try this again when the weather is cooler and I am less stressed!

We also introduced a bit of dyed silk which I loved. This was the first time I had tried spinning silk top and I am definitely looking forward to trying more.

Into the afternoon we did two more singles and then plied them together. I was a bit slow so two of my singles were about the same length and the third one was much shorter, hence I ended up with a bit of 3ply and then plied the remaining two together to see the difference. The lower skein is the 3ply, the upper the 2ply:

She also gave us some samples of other fibre blends which I didn’t get round to trying during the workshop but which I am looking forward to trying in the next few weeks.

Judith has been involved with the fibre world for a long time and it was very interesting to listen to her talk about all sorts of things not necessarily related to spinning for socks during the workshop. I am looking forward to reading her book, when I find it, I am pretty sure it is in this room somewhere.

After dinner it was time for the Ravelry party.

I only lasted a couple of hours before I had to crawl off to bed, but it was lovely to see everyone again, and to admire everyone’s beautiful shawls.

I came home Sunday morning and was very grateful that Paul retrieved me from the station saving me from the walk home.

All in all a very enjoyable few days. I learned lots and had a great time meeting new people and previous friends. I hope they will hold another next year, although I am rather tempted by a lighter wheel if they do. I love Suzie but she is a heavy girl (rather like her owner).

Last Friday I packed the car well before my normal getting up time and trundled over to pick up Joanne (only 5 mins late, I am improving!) to head off for a weekend of knitting fun in Haworth for Skip North 2010. The drive up went surprisingly well considering that there were roadworks every couple of miles all the way up the M1 (and on the M3 and the M25 too).  We arrived at our B&B at lunchtime, and discovered there had been a mistake with Joanne’s booking, and that although there was space for her on Friday night, there was no room on Saturday. Luckily a spare room was found at the Youth Hostel for the Saturday, so after unloading our stuff from the car (I seemed to have brought a greater volume of knitting than I had clothes) we trundled up the hill to the Youth Hostel to check in and get our acts together for the afternoon workshops.

I did Sue‘s workshop on shadow knitting first. I had read a bit about shadow knitting (also called illusion knitting) before, and seen Steve’s fabulous work, but never given it a go, so this seemed the ideal opportunity. It is great fun, and I love the moment of discovery when you tilt your work and see the pattern appear.

Here is my sample as seen from above:

Can you tell what it is yet?

I am looking forward to having more of an experiment with this technique.

Then I did a workshop with Jane on different kinds of colour knitting. Here is the cup cosy I knitted:

The two coloured braid is a Twinded Herringbone braid, and the single coloured braid is a Vikkel braid. I am definitely looking forward to incorporating these in something in the future. There is also a bit of mosaic knitting, and a double strand cast on using two strands the same colour, and a double strand cast off using one strand of each colour.

After tea was the P/Hop swap. People brought along yarn, needles and books they no longer wanted, then other people could claim it in exchange for a donation to Medecins sans Frontieres made later through the P/Hop website. Here is Nic presiding over the chaos.

After the swap we all sat around knitting and chatting. It was lovely to see old friends and meet new ones, and to spend time with other enthusiastic and knowledgeable knitters.

Luckily after all this excitement Saturday featured a bit of a lie in. We had a fantastic cooked breakfast at the B&B and then made our way up to the Youth Hostel to catch the bus at 11am. First stop was Coldspring Mill, a strange combination of camping shop upstairs and bargain yarn basement downstairs. There were lots of lovely cotton yarns, although I managed to resist. I actually have a lot of cotton yarn still despite giving a lot away last year, and find that it is a bit painful on my hands to knit with, I think from now on I shall stick with blends. They had quite a selection of other yarns too, there seemed to be a lot of pale yellow about, unfortunately not really my colour.

Then it was back on the bus, where we ate our sandwiches, despite thinking we would never need to eat again after breakfast, and headed off to the Knitting and Crochet Guild. Liz gave us an interesting talk and showed us a lot of things from the guild collection, then it was time for a spot of shopping with KCG Trading. Unfortunately the book I was hoping to look at hadn’t arrived yet, but I did manage to get a skein of wonderful radioactive green sock yarn

This is Trekking Hand Art, 100g, 420m, 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon, the colour is officially called Brazil.

Tired but happy after a hard days shopping we piled back on the bus back to the Youth Hostel and yet another great meal

In the evening we were treated to a talk by Shaun and Julie of County Alpacas. A very interesting talk about the history of alpacas in the UK and the situation currently. I loved this opportunity to hear more about the fibre industry, and their alpacas are very cute! They also brought with them some lovely fibre and yarn from their own animals, so I bought a 250g bag of black fibre. I haven’t quite decided what I am going to do with it yet. It is special so I want to do it justice, I shall think on it for a bit.

Sunday was a bit of an earlier start with the coach departing at 9am. I was cutting it a bit fine as I screeched into my parking space just after the bus drew up, and had just enough time to dash in and grab my packed lunch while everyone else started to board the bus. The early start was because Sunday was Wingham Wool Works day, which is about an hour to an hour and a half from Haworth, depending on the traffic.

Despite having been there a couple of times before, and the last time only in November it still took me a while to stop being overwhelmed by all the fibre and actually start to look at everything properly! We were very fortunate that the weather was lovely. Great for standing outside in a daze while contemplating more different colours of fibre than you know what to do with.

I managed to fill my bag with a few little goodies.

I got three different colours of rainbow merino / silk tops. I think this blend is 70% merino, 30% silk. I got somewhere between about 150g and 200g of each (I wasn’t being terribly accurate with my measuring).

These are all going to be sock experiments. I am going to try and spin a tightly twisted 3ply and see how they wear.

I also got a little selection of their sample fibre bags.

Corn, ramie (nettles), milk protein, two kinds of tussah silk, and banana fibre.

These little sample bags are such a great idea, you have enough fibre to play with and see whether you like it, without having to have 100g of something which it may turn out you are not that keen on.

After we had shopped until we dropped, and had a quick drink in the pub down the road, it was back on the coach to the Youth Hostel for the final tea and cake and goodbyes, and then time to wedge all our new purchaes into the car.

I had a wonderful weekend, and have come away with so many ideas, as well as some rather yummy yarn and fibre. I love these opportunities to spend time with so many lovely knitty people. A big thanks to Alex and Nic for all the organising and cat herding. There are better photos than mine on the flickr group.

The trip home wasn’t quite as smooth as had been hoped. Not awful, but there was a lot of stopping and starting and traffic as we made our way through the many roadworks. We made it home fine if a bit tired, and not too late in the end.

I just finished spinning up some Manx Loghtan ( a rather funny looking sheep as you can see from that link). I bought the fibre from Wingham back in November and started spinning shortly after Christmas.

The fibre smelt quite rural, although that improved greatly after washing the finished yarn and is quite hairy, producing a fairly hairy and slightly lumpy yarn.

I spun a 3ply and got 346m from 121g (the non-round number of grams is because if you go up to Wingham, then rather than buying fibre per 100g for most of the different types of wool you select a plastic bag and stuff in as much as you would like from an enormous coil of combed top, then pay for the weight you have got. I was aiming for slightly over 100g to allow me plenty to play with), in about a DK weight.

It has come out as quite a soft and bouncy yarn, though not as soft as Merino or Bluefaced Leicester. I am enjoying experimenting with different breeds of wool and seeing how they behave. In hindsight I didn’t put quite enough twist into the singles which meant that they drifted apart a few times as I was plying. All a learning experience, I will know for next time.  The finished yarn seems fine though and not too delicate. I am looking forward to knitting with it! It is going to be part of my Handspun Leaves Waistcoat, which I must get a move on with, it has been languishing on top of my speakers recently (yes there is yarn or fibre on every surface in this house!).

I spent a fabulous weekend helping out at the Unravel festival of knitting at the Maltings in Farnham. It has wiped me out a bit though, hence why it has taken me til today to sort out my thoughts and photos.

I was helping out with the Surrey Knitting Group, answering people’s knitting queries, knitting flowers (actually I failed miserably to knit any myself, but I did help other people with the patterns), and demonstrating how to knit socks (or any other small circumference bit of circular knitting) on one long circular needle. And also helping with the West Surrey Guild of Spinners, Weavers, and Dyers, demonstrating spinning and helping people to have a go themselves.

Here is our little corner, with a display of members work in the background.

I had been hoping to be able to help with the set up but was unfortunately stuck in New Jersey on Friday at the crucial time, and only made it back by Saturday lunchtime (more on that in the next post!).

There were more exhibitors than last year, and a very good range of interesting things to look at and buy. I noticed an emphasis this year on natural dyeing and undyed yarns and fibres, and it was great to see some raw fleece and rare breeds too. There were a few stands selling equipment, I think two or three doing spindles, and one doing wheels. It would have been nice to see more, but then this is still a very new festival and still finding its feet. There were two very nice looking button stands, Jenny Stacy had buttons made with fimo, I am definitely inspired to have a go at making some when I next finish a project which needs buttons, and Textile Garden had some very interesting buttons including beautiful wooden and metal ones.

We had a good number of volunteers on the stands this year, meaning that we had enough people to cope at busy times, and at quieter times we all got the opportunity to have a quick look round the rest of the exhibition and make a few purchases. I was partially saved from myself on this front by John Arbon doing such a roaring trade that when I went back on Sunday morning for some lovely merino / alpaca fibre I had seen on Saturday they had all sold out. I did manage to get a nice little spindle, I don’t know what make it is as it was unlabelled, but it weighs 35g and seems to spin very nicely. I surprised myself by enjoying it more than I thought I would.

I also got some yummy fibre from Fyberspates.

First 100g of green and blue Falkland.

And the piece de resistance, 100g of Sparkle, 63% merino, 20% silk, 15% nylon, 2% silver. Unfortunately my poor photography doesn’t really capture the sparkle terribly well, but it is there, and is sparkly

I had a great time at the show, and have nearly caught up on my sleep now. Lots to look at, and lots of interesting and keen people to talk to, some of whom hopefully might come along to the knitting or spinning group. Roll on next year!

World of Wool had a 10% off everything January sale which I didn’t quite manage to resist. These lovely goodies arrived last week.

First 200g of 70% Bluefaced leicester, 30% tussah silk.

I am planning to dye this and then experiment with spinning some 3ply for socks I think.

Next 200g of 70% 23 micron merino, 30% tussah silk.

Again I am planning to dye this and spin some 3ply for socks. I am interested to compare it to the bfl and see how they differ in taking the dye, spinning and how well they wear as socks.

I am hoping that the silk will add strength to the wool, but without drastically reducing the elasticity. That is the plan at any rate, we shall see!

Lastly I got 300g of 70% 18.5 micron merino, 30% mulberry silk.

This is the supersoft version of the other merino / silk mix.

I think I will try spinning this one first and then dyeing it. I think I will try and spin a 2ply lace weight, and then make it into some kind of a shawl. I am hoping that writing my thoughts down here I will remember what I was thinking of doing with it all by the time I get round to spinning and knitting it!

In a bid to expand my fibre knowledge I have just received some lovely North Ronaldsay fibre from Scottish Fibres. This is the breed of sheep from North Ronalsay in the Orkney Islands, which lives on the outskirts of the island and eats seaweed. It is a nice soft fibre, although not the smoothest. I think it will make quite a hairy textured yarn.

I have 200g in white, and 200g in brown. The plan is to spin them up separately, then dye the white (although I’m not sure what colour yet), then knit a hat in the two colours. There was an interesting double layer hat in a fairly recent issue of Spin Off that I thought looked quite interesting.

We had a lovely Christmas at Paul’s parents. Lots of food, board games and good company. Unfortunately this year Paul’s nana came down with a cold just before Christmas and so didn’t come to stay. Hopefully we will see her and catch up before too long. We saw my parents in the middle of December when they stayed with us while doing their pre-Christmas relative visit. We were going to have Ashby-Family-Christmas on the second weekend of January, but have postponed it for a bit because of the snow.

I really enjoy our spread-out Christmas celebrations. There is more opportunity to savour the time together, rather than feeling that you are on a visiting treadmill with no time to actual spend in each others company. I like to spread the fun out, and enjoy it for as long as possible It makes for a more relaxed time, and also the chance to do things you have been wanting to have a go at but been putting off.

I took Suzie along for Christmas, and had a lovely time spinning away while Paul read his book, Paul’s dad did his crossword, and Paul’s mum worked on her tapestry weaving. Paul’s mum had a go on Suzie too and made some very respectable yarn, which I completely forgot to photograph.

As part of my Christmas present I got some lovely knitty and spinny things. From my mum a skein of Debonnaire sock yarn, 100% superwash merino, 100g, 365m. I think the colour is called passion / envy but the band is hand written and I am having a bit of a failure on the handwriting!

The colours are actually a bit darker in real life. Lovely saturated jewel tones. Yum!

She also got me a bag of guanaco fibre from Texere, and two sample bags of silk fibre from Winghams.

The guanaco is the wild relative (possibly ancestor) of the llama, and looks really interesting. I think there are still some guard hairs in this fibre, but it still feels very very soft. The silk is unbelievably luscious, and the colours beautiful. It is so shiny and squidgy!

My sister and her husband gave me a lovely surprise pressie from their holiday in Scotland. A skein of Angora Ecosse, from a farm they visited.

The label is a bit lacking in detail but I am guessing it is about a 4ply weight, 100g, and probably an angora / wool mix. I think I might make a little cowl, there seem to be a lot of nice patterns about at the moment.

There seem to be a rather depressing number of yarn shops closing down at the moment. One of those sadly I only learned about after its demise. It was in Woodmansterne, and I think closed down last year. Since their closure they have been holding occasional yarn sales in the village hall. I learned about one of them in December through Kitty who organises the Ashtead knitting group, and weather permitting they are also going to be coming to the January meeting of the Ashtead group.

They are selling off their yarn at £1 a ball, and have quite a wide selection of yarns left (or at least they did when I left the hall!). I picked up 7 balls of Patons Baby Pure Wool 3ply (these are 25g balls).

I’m not sure where they have been stored because there were bits of twig and grass in the bag, but the yarn itself seems fine. I think I am going to have a go at dyeing this, and then knitting something lacey.

I also went along to Stash in Putney during their closing down sale and picked up a couple of skeins of Koigu in colour 14063, a lovely spring colour. At least it can be spring inside even if the weather is full of grey slush outside.

And I got two balls of Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply in a lovely shade of bright red. Unfortunately the two balls were the last they had and are two different dye lots. My plan is to knit socks with them and then hopefully you wont notice the difference in colour.

It is a shame to see Stash closing, but people’s lives change and it isn’t always possible to carry on doing everything. It has definitely made me re-appreciate how luckily I am living here that there is easy access to a wide range of yarn shops, along with all the mail order places and people I see at shows.

On a more upbeat note. The weather may be grey and grim, and the ground grey and slushy, but the weather is definitely warming up, and transport looks like it is getting easier.

While ordering yet more stuffing for the toy elephants from World of Wool a few other little goodies slipped into my basket.

This is a really interesting mixture of merino, brown alpaca, camel, and silk.

I got 300g so that should be plenty to be playing with. I might experiment with dyeing some too, as I think the different fibres will take the dye differently and create interesting results.

And these are all merino, 100g of each. I couldn’t resist the lovely colours.

I certainly have lots of lovely things to keep me busy in 2010 (and probably for several years to come!).

Back in the middle of November I had an outing up to Yorkshire to see my parents, and managed to fit in rather a lot of knitting related things while I was there.

On the way we stopped in to Texere in Bradford. A marvelous fun place if you happen to be up in that part of the world, definitely worth a visit. Basically it is a mail order warehouse which is also a shop, great fun to wander round and see all the bits and pieces.

I bought some coloured merino tops.

Emerald, terracotta, wine, purple, petrol, ink, and chestnut. Each bag is 50g. I am going to experiment with mixing colours together in my spinning. I am thinking of spinning a single in each of 2 or 3 colours and then plying them together, to see what the effect is like, and also to see whether I like it knitted up.

I also bought a couple of posters of sheep breeds which have gone to Mummy as part of her Christmas present

No trip to Yorkshire at that time of year would be complete without an outing to the Knitting and Stitching show at Harrogate. We went on both the Thursday and Friday this time, allowing us finally time to see the exhibition as well as to see all the stands multiple times. This year for me was definitely the year of needles and fibre. I bought these fabulous coloured acrylic needles from Bev at Knitting 4 fun.

I am such a sucker for pretty knitting needles.

There are sizes, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 7, and 8 mm needle heads, cables in 60, 80, 100 and 120 cm, 8 end caps, and 4 cable keys in the bag. They are all fully interchangeable with all the other KnitPro needles.

I did quite well with Mummy’s Christmas present, and also got her 6 balls of Lang Mille Colori from Art Yarn, and a wooden shawl pin. She chose these so although they wont be a surprise, at least I know she likes them!

Continuing on the needle theme, I got another couple of Knit Pro needle heads, and some very cute cat buttons from Knitting 4 Fun, and a 30cm, 2.5mm addi circular needle from Art Yarn.

The 30cm circular has very short angled needle heads. I am intrigued to see whether I will be able to knit comfortably using my normal knitting hand position. I am looking forward to experimenting!

Last but not least, I got some gorgeous purple silk fibre from Oliver Twist (I can’t find their website, not sure if they have one).

This is so soft, but they have washed it in some incredibly strong smelling detergent! I think I may have to spin this in small doses, or try and air it or wash it before I start spinning.

While I was staying with my parents we also popped into Boyes, and I bought 2m of a fabric described as Chef Check.

The squares are about 3cm wide, and it is a nice sturdy non stretchy fabric. I plan to pin it over my foam playmats when I am blocking knitting, and then use the checks on the fabric to make sure that I have everything lined up.

As a special treat on my way home we went to Wingham Wool Work. I hadn’t been for three years, and the last time I was there I wasn’t a spinner, so there was lots to see, we ended up spending most of the afternoon there!

I think I now have enough fibre to last me for years!

I got some Falkland.

Some Corriedale.

Some Manx Loghtan.

Some Shetland Moorit (this really is a lovely colour).

Some Teal Merino.

Some rainbow merino in blues and greens.

Some rainbow merino with silk in, in turquoises.

in greens.

and in oranges.

Whew! This will keep me busy for a bit! It seemed like a great opportunity to buy things while I could see them and feel them. Particularly with the blends, which were all a bit different, and there were many more than are available generally on the website.