Dansk fiber blog

Jeg har leget med tanken om at sætte en dansk blog op sammen med en lille netbutik til mit overskudslager. Det bliver ikke en kopi af denne blog med alt mellem himmel og jord, den vil heller ikke blive opdateret så ofte med mindre det vælter ind med brugere(!).

Det hele ligger lokalt på vores egen server som et lille eksperiment, så svartiden er måske ikke hvad man er vant til ude på det store WWW, vi ved det ikke! Så jeg inviterer hermed til test og feedback: www.farvehytten.dk

Egentlig ville jeg vente med annonceringen til der lå lidt mere indhold, men så sker der det ene, og det andet og tiden går, og så får jeg heller ikke lagt noget på fordi jeg jo ved at der ikke er nogen som ser det.

Så nu ser vi!


uk This is an announcement of my new Danish website with a small shop for surplus production. You’re welcome to have a look, but I won’t be translating it. Possibly I’ll put up stuff for sale in here as well unless it grows enough to reopen my Etsy store. Any suggestions on that front? (when I began the draft for this post I probably knew what I meant by that question, now I don’t, but I’m going to leave it in case somebody else does)

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Sheep market

Well, not actually with sheep for sale, but about them. I was slightly underwhelmed I must admit, this being my first, but at least I’ve seen it. Just a handful of meat sheep, a handful of stalls with knitware and other crafty stuff, easily browsed in half an hour when you’re on a budget and didn’t think to bring cash anyway.

hyrde

But we did see a sheepdog at work, had locally made lamb sausages with unfiltered apple juice (one of my faves) and sheep milk ice cream for lunch. I ran into my friend Nina who lent me 200 kr. so I could buy some merino top that I fell in love with as well as a couple of pounds of Leicester fleece “pick your own bagful”. He just said “white L.”, but since we do have a breed called Danish L. I’m guessing that’s it. I didn’t stay put for the presentation of that one because the dog show started, so I don’t know if they originate from the Border Leicester or the original Leicester Longwool. (had I bought the fleece first I would have paid more attention of course)

shropshire lamb
shropshire lamb

One of the ideas I came away with was felted postcards, really cute. I forgot to take pix or buy one however, like I forgot I wanted to taste the muffins. 😉

And I learned why wool sheep like the nordic shorttail breeds actually taste better than meat sheep. Meat sheep store their fat in their muscles, the smaller wool sheep around their organs. This means a Spelsau or Gotland sheep has very lean meat with no “zoo taste” to it. You don’t get nearly as much money from the butcher per sheep, which is why the meat sheep exist of course, who can pack on some serious weight in a short time.

Phew. That was a full weekend for sure. You’ll be hearing from me when I resurface to the land of the living. 😉

Fåredage i Hedelanddanish

Så fik jeg også prøvet det. En anelse skuffende måske mht størrelsen af arrangementet, en håndfuld kødfår og to håndfulde boder med strik og lidt andet finurligt, let at gennemgå på en halv times tid når man ikke har overvejet nødvendigheden af at medbringe kontanter. Men jeg rendte da heldigvis ind i en veninde som kunne låne mig 200 kr. så jeg kunne plukke en pose Leicester råuld og lidt merinotops i fristende farver fra Renee Darley. Lidt skulle jeg jo have, når ikke jeg nåede spindedag med indbygget uld-shopping!

En lammepølse med æblemost og fåremælksis kunne det også lige blive til, vi fik set en border collie optræde med sit “team”, og det var så det. Godt det samme, for det var jo også halm-weekend, så vi er lidt flade nu.

Jeg så nogen fine filtede postkort som jeg glemte at købe eller fotografere og jeg lærte hvorfor uldfår smager bedre end kødfår. Kødfår lagrer fedtet i musklerne, uldfårene omkring organerne, derfor er kødet både magert og uden smag af zoologisk have.

merino

Fibery stuff this week

Pincushion progress:

pin1

First one felted and stitched up ready to fill, but I want to add icord loops or something to have the option of hanging them from a hook. (if I can find a suitable location away from cat paws) I decided to try out the dye with regular laundry detergent, twice. Original yarn included in the photo. It turned out rather larger than I expected after my blanket adventure, but I liked the fabric the way it was, so didn’t want to give it another go at a higher temp.

pin2

Second one felted and ready to be stitched. Yarn is dyed with madder exhaust and Dyer’s Chamomile. Also washed with the clothes and detergent.

pin3

Third one – yarn chosen but the shape hasn’t presented itself to me yet. Possibly a cube. Originally all three were going to be like the first, but then the second wanted to be different and I obliged. Apparently my inner self does not want to be classy, and for now I’m listening – as long as it’s actually saying something, fine! Even if it means the house will look like a cirkus… Skeins are dyed with Dyer’s Chamomile and Weld (the lighter one).

Suffolk preparation started:

suffolk16

I’ve decided to just finger pick everything to get rid of the tiny bits of vegetable matter, then loosely blend on hand cards, which I hate but really doesn’t take such a long time as I imagined. To be spun into yarn for the tapestry testing, and when I’m done I have a huge box of Dorset that I’ve plant dyed which needs the same treatment. I thought I said something about not production spinning?!

Sample loom 1 done:

loom3

loom1

Seems to be working fairly well, I’ll be testing various widths of warp, how many meters of yarn go into xx cm of weaving etc. I tried at first without nails, just wrapping around, but I think it will work better with nails on the front. Possibly because the frame is so small, pulling the warp up from the back really makes it very taut. As well as being fiddly to adjust the gaps.
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danishUgens fiberprojekter

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Nålepuder af plantefarvet garn undervejs: Første er klar til at blive fyldt, og så skal jeg lige have lavet en løkke i toppen til at hænge den op, inden jeg kan sy den sidste kant. Garnet er farvet med vaid.

Nr. 2 er filtet og klar til at blive syet sammen (kraprod og gåseurt), den sidste er der fundet garn frem til (gåseurt og vau). Jeg har vasket det sammen med tøjet og almindeligt vaskepulver, noget plantefarve kan ikke lide den behandling, men jeg ville lige prøve at se hvordan disse, normalt ret farveægte typer holdt sig.

Jeg er endelig gået i gang med den sidste klargøring af min Suffolk ham som jeg gik og sjatfarvede i sommer. Det bliver pillet fra hinanden med fingrene for at blive fri for plantefnuller og håndkartet løseligt (hvilket jeg er herredårlig til, men det går faktisk hurtigere end antaget.) Ja, og så er der naturligvis den kæmpe kasse Dorset jeg har plantefarvet, som skal samme vej…

Og så har jeg lavet en miniature væveramme til at lave lidt garn- og tekniktest på.