Happy Fibre Arts Friday!

I’ve not been consistent with these blog posts but I have been busy working on something special, well, I think they are special anyway 😃

I’ve been inspired by all the mini skeins in hand dyed yarns and also the self striping yarns. Then I remembered that a few years ago I made a batch a mini braids for the Sock Bale from The Australian Bale Project, it was well received, but I can’t get my hands on more of the sock bale. So I started by designing a fibre blend that would work well for socks but also soft/versatile enough for other projects, and I came up with this blend:

• 25% BFL (Bluefaced Leicester)

• 25% Polwarth

• 25% Cheviot

• 12.5% Dorset Horn

• 12.5% Southdown

In this blend, the BFL and Polwarth contribute softness, BFL also adds a little bit lustre, Cheviot provides body and durability, and both Dorset Horn and Southdown are down type wool that lend insulation, elasticity and washability. I could have just used one down type wool but I wanted to experiment 😉🐑

The result is a blend that is soft, durable and versatile, and all natural fibres! Next, on to dyeing and oh boy did I have fun… 😃

I love the depth of colour on this fibre base and once I had a pile of colourful mini braids I wanted to play! My idea was to spin a self striping yarn to make socks, there are approximately 20g in each mini braid and for my small feet I only need 80g so I could have a 4 colour repeat for my yarn.

Next I torn each mini braid in half from the middle lengthwise so now I have two 10g halves of each colour. I then got out my digital scale and further stripped the halves into 1g strips. Playing with the colour placement was fun, and I finally settled in the blue-brown-rusty-orange sequence.

Once I got the colour sequence the spinning was easy. I had 20x 1g strips to each colour so I set 10 strips per singles and spun two singles of the same sequence. I was a little apprehensive when plying as I know I had not always been consistent while spinning, but the stripes lined up more or less and I was happy with the result.

I had fun spinning the two singles to ply but I have to admit there was a little anxiety over colour matching up, so next time I’m going to Navajo ply (chain ply) to keep the colours clean 😉

I don’t know about you but I mainly knit my socks toe up with a short row heel, because it’s easy to try on as I go and I don’t need to calculate for the heel flap, and it uses less yarn 😉

For the first sock I spun a little bit in blue for the toe and heel and I plan to spin a little brown for the second sock.

There are other ways of using these mini braids, I’m planning to do a little blending to make a gradient or ombre, or maybe a fade… what do you think?

The mini braids are now in my online shop and you can find them here.