Bushfire Socks

When the Victorian bushfire appeal was launched there was a number of donations of wool offered to people who donated cash to the appeal. I discovered this on ravelry.com and was lucky enough to be one of the winners. The wool was donated by The Loopy Ewe as was the pattern, which is Cookie A's Zanzibar Socks. It's merino wool which I imagine probably came from Australia originally. It was then spun and dyed in Germany, made its way to North America and then travelled all the way back to New Zealand. I thought of sending the socks on to Australia when they were finished, but I'm in need of socks and the wool has probably clocked up a large enough carbon footprint in its career so it had better stay here.
So with thanks to The Loopy Ewe, here are the finished socks:

Garden of Flowers Rug

This rug is the result of having a large stash of handspun wool which was fairly coarse and a very tatty old mat in the doorway which was irritating me. The pattern is adapted from a cushion design in a book called Ethnic Needlepoint but I made it in cross stitch and elongated it to make it more ruglike.
The dyes I used include eucalyptus, lichen, cochineal, brazilwood, nettles, onion skins and madder. It took a lot longer to make than I expected so I hope it lasts for a while so I don't need to make another.

Tartan Grand Final

The bookbinder in person came to finish off the final section of the tartan. He showed a remarkable aptitude for weaving which is not surprising in one so skilled in other crafts. We'd saved him the most difficult part to test his resolve.


Note the matching tartans.






Cutting the warp with his dirk. This is an ancient Oamaruvian tradition.





And the (almost) finished cloth. It just needs fulling now, and we hope it doesn't shrink too much. Thankfully all the stripes seem to be in the right places.

Tartan update

Here is a progress report on the bookbinder's tartan. We met yesterday at Doe's and amazed ourselves by producing cloth that looks just like we hoped it would. The photos are a bit bleached looking because it was a dull day and the flash took away the yellow and green colours, but they give the general idea.

Bookbinder's tartan

I stole a beautiful hand bound book from the master bookbinder in Oamaru. In exchange I undertook to make him a length of tartan from handspun naturally dyed wool. I had to enlist the expert help of my friend Doe because I am no weaver. However, I expect to know more by the time this is finished.
For the wool I chose a fleece from one of last year's lambs, a Suffolk/Corriedale cross. The wool is quite fine and spongey with a shortish staple. It's been quite slow to spin.
We dyed it with madder, indigo, safflower and a mix of weld and onion skins. Getting the teal green was the most challenging colour for us but we were pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Dyeing with indigo


The completed colours with a sample of the tartan


Preparing the warp






Starting to warp up the loom

Final Christmas Knitting

Again I've resorted to Folk knitting in Estonia for a sock pattern. These socks are based on Virve's Stockings but I've modified them a bit because i enjoy having some fancy stuff to do instead of plain old stocking stitch.
I made them for my daughter but I expect she will be rather appalled and wish I had chosen something she would actually wear. Still, I had fun and that's important.
And that's the end of the alpaca I got from my brother. Back to sheep's wool now and lots of spinning.

Christmas socks

Now I've started making things for my family it's hard to know where to stop. these socks are for my father, but now my aunt has an order in and I'm working on socks for my daughter. Then there are all the rest maybe wondering, 'What about me?'
These socks have industrial strength heels which will probably not fit any known brand of shoe, except maybe a gumboot. However, they should take a while to wear out and that has to be a good thing. The wool is alpaca from my brother's alpacas and Gotland Pelt. When I run out of alpaca I'll get going on spinning up this year's fleeces.