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I wrote most of this issue around the summer solstice. So it's a little ironic but nonetheless welcome to see so many pullovers and cardigans in the finished project gallery.
The pattern suggestions are more seasonal. There are new skills to learn, such as hand-ginning cotton, needle felting or weaving with art yarn. Once again the events listing contains events that you can take part in online.
Read on for this month's cunning curated collection of inspirational information and entertainment for spinners, knitters, crocheters, dyers and weavers.
Margaret Seaman, who has previously made fundraising dioramas of Great Yarmouth's Golden Mile and Sandringham House, is still busy, this time with a 'Knittingale Hospital'.
It's still a work in progress, but there's a lovely video interview with Margaret on the ITV site, along with some shots of her new work.
Funnily enough, even though I'm from Norfolk myself and have met Margaret in person, I first saw this story on an American news site, so she's hitting the global headlines!
The Great Glamorgan Sock Project aims to identify every breed of sheep being raised in the County of Glamorgan, South Wales.
information about the sheep, their owners, the shearers, spinners and knitters, will be on display at the Royal Welsh Show in 2022, when Glamorgan will be the host county
There are many other pictures in her photo stream, showing her working at her great (walking) wheel, the finished yarn, the knitting and the finished socks.
With thanks to Freyalyn for the heads-up about the gansey knit-a-long at the Guernseys, Ganseys and Knit-frocks group, and for her notes about the Manx gansey. She shows a picture of the example from the Isle of Man museum. The pattern they have is now available on Ravelry.
Also in this post, she has overdyed some faded pink Frangipani yarn and gives some details about that. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished jumper.
It's June and time to prepare. Tour de Fleece is getting closer.
If you've never taken part in Tour de Fleece, this may be a good introduction. Guzzisue looks back at previous year's events and considers what she might do this year.
Links to the event's hub on Ravelry are below our 'Events' heading.
Brittany Trask's story in PLY magazine doesn't include details of the spinning but she does write a moving story about how much it means to her to have a memorial made from the dog's fur.
I've seen pictures of Evanita's Magpie Standard with nothing else in the picture for scale. It was a surprise to see this self-portrait and find out just how massive this spinner is.
It measures 15"L x 8.5"W x 11"H (38x21x28cm). The manufacturer claims that a full bobbin can hold 18-20oz (600g) but Evanita says that she has "blown that out of the water" and will be holding a competition to guess the weight of the singles on this bobbin. For details of that competition, keep an eye on fiberygoodness. The magazine will have a 3-person review of this spinner later in the year.
In this latest instalment in Josefin's series about Swedish sheep breeds, she looks in some detail at Finull wool, which is bred for its wool.
The wool is soft, fine and shiny with a high crimp. The wool is sometimes blended with other breeds and the sheep are crossed with Gotland, texel, rya.
She also includes notes about how she likes to prepare and spin Finull.
When little needs saying except 'beautiful colour'
A study in contrasts
Knit/Wit spun a true three-ply from this hand-dyed Falkland from Fibernymph Dye Work.
She just split it into thirds and spun the colours as they came. The result is surprisingly well-blended and darker than I'd expect, although that may just be the photograph.
This 'before and after' shot shows the transformation of this fibre. The colours look stronger and more primary in the finished yarn. Navajo plying helped to concentrate the colours rather than blend them.
A swing picker isn't a commonly-seen piece of equipment. It prepares raw fleece for carding by opening up the locks. You could do this with a flick carder but the picker makes short work of the job.
In this video, Fibre Sprite Pamela demonstrates her process.
Melvenea Hodges has written this article which contains two methods of removing the seeds from cotton bolls. Each has pros and cons and may be suitable for particular kinds of cotton.
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The Coronavirus pandemic is causing havoc in all our lives at the moment but what about the charities and organisations that rely on public fundraising to maintain their care services? Martin House Children's Hospice is such a charity, with an annual running cost of around £9 million to provide their vital services to families, they need our help.
As a way of offering support to Martin House, Adam Curtis Online are donating a percentage every sale of their two most popular ranges, the Best of British Wool Throw Collection and the Real Shetland Cushion range.
Please see their blog for more information about Martin House and the fundraising products.
The next handspun jumper this month is mrssophie2's Koivua
It took her around 10 weeks to knit from her own handspun yarn.
The pattern is Koivua by Caitlin Hunter. It features colourwork and texture created by knit and purl stitches, making it an "engaging yet not difficult" knit.
This is Josefin's first published sweater pattern (published in Spin-Off, Summer 2020). She designed the pattern specifically for handspun yarn.
This example is made from a Swedish breed. She made rolags, blending the white fleece with a little sari silk for tweedy flecks of colour. She made a 3-ply woollen yarn spun with English longdraw.
The pattern is designed to let the handspun yarn shine, emphasising the characteristics of her particular wool.
I'm linking to her blog post in which she writes about the making and the design process.
When this woven runner came off the loom, Carrie Miller felt that the finished textile was a bit disjointed. You can see what she means in her pictures.
Her fix was to overdye with indigo which worked well. She gives instructions for overdyeing using pre-reduced indigo crystals.
This month's sexy spindle shot shows part of missalicefaye's spindle collection. I believe they're Phang style Godess support spindles from Bristlecone.
All of these colours are indeed from the one batt, Peach Blossom from Inglenook Fibre.
robbyraccoon didn't use handspun yarn but the main yarn was from a small producer. The pattern creates the design using floats on the right side. This example uses no colour but relies on the texture of the 'contrast yarn'.
This would be perfect for showing off a handspun yarn, whether you opted to use a smooth and a textured handspun, or a commercial yarn for the background.
Thanks to Green Mountain Spinnery, whose page I'm linking to here. Links to the pattern and to Julie's project are therein.
Kinetic sculpture by Felipe Pantone slides into a hypnotizing kaleidoscope of color
Appropriately-named Felipe Pantone has made this kinetic sculpture. It "makes the relationship between colour theory and human action tangible" which means that you slide the panels and new colours are revealed, based on subtractive colour mixing.
Coral consists of individual polyps, connected and dependent on each other.
Ruth Payne's knitted blanket allows up to six people to experience this connectedness. If the group wants to go for a walk, some lead and others must follow.
In light of the current situation, the regular events listing here is temporarily replaced by an 'online events' listing.
Are you hosting or taking part in an online event or challenge that I'm not aware of? Let me know.
Tour de Fleece
Saturday June 27 until Sunday July 19, 2020
Spin-along during the Tour de France. Challenge Yourself. Spin. Have fun.
There was some uncertainty for a while about whether the Tour de Fleece would be moved so that it still coincides with the Tour de France if that was rescheduled. At present, the Tour de Fleece group is still saying 27th -19th, but watch that page for updates.
There is no entry fee to register a team. Spinners will be invited to donate a minimum of £5 each and ALL funds raised in 2020 will be donated directly to the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution)
I'm Shiela Dixon, I've beeing doing this for around ten years in order to promote and encourage the craft of spinning.
You can help to support this work with a regular contribution (pay what you like, no matter how small) and in return receive HSN earlier and receive a longer ad-free* version (approx half the number of stories again).
A final word of thanks to everyone who blogs, writes articles or posts pictures on the subject of spinning, knitting, crochet or weaving. This newsletter wouldn't exist without people writing interesting and useful things.
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