Handspun wool & Projects

My embroidery has been put aside this week because I have been experimenting woth hand spun yarns.  By combining fibres together such as Silk, Alpaca,Mohair, Bamboo or Banana Fibre then spinning the dyed fibre, produces some of the skeins of yarn below.
The first 2 are a mixture of wool/mohair/silk.
The third skein is wool and these three have longer colour repeats

No 3 skein is a mixture of wool/silk and bamboo, plied with a fine silk thread.  It is dyed after spinning, so the colour repeats are short

No 4 skein is a mixture of wool/alpaca & bamboo

No 5 skein is a mixture of wool/alpaca & banana fibre

No 4 & 5 skeins have longer colour repeats

I have knitted hats to show how the colours work...

Also I have knitted a shoulder shawl with yarn spun from Ashford Silk/Merino sliver.  It is lovely to work with and would like to do more of this yarn too.

I will keep you posted with my projects so that you too may be inspired
Jan

ABOUT ME

I live in Invercargill, New Zealand and am married to Bill.  I have 2 grown children and 3 grandsons.
I operate BJ's Colourways & Collectibles, a Fibrearts supply shop at home.  I hand dye most of my products and will be sharing many of them with you. 
I have knitting wools, handspun luxury wools which have merino or wool combined with silk, alpaca or mohair.  Also are hand dyed sik fibres and yarns, many embroidery threads and fabrics.

Jan Gibb

NEW PROJECT
I have been working with silk threads on this pattern by Catherine Howell.  The threads are really easy to use and give a lovely effect.  Follow my progress....

Here are some of the silk threads I have dyed.  They are a 10 ply, meaning there are 10 strands of a fine (60/2) in each strand.  I use one fine random dyed thread with a plain one to give dimension and interest to my flowers and leaves.

Some of the other silk threads... I have several weights -  8/2 (thickest), 10/2, 12/2, 20/2, 30/2, 60/2 (Finest) in allsorts of colours.