So an invite has just come in for a family christening next month – my niece is having her daughter christened mid April. Unfortunately someone has to stay behind to look after the dogs and chickens, and since the chickens are mine, its me who is top choice for the job. So, I wanted to create something personal to send as a gift in my place, to show that I think about my family members who live further away. What better way than by spinning and weaving a christening blanket?

So why have I called this an extreme spinning and weaving project? Am I spinning and weaving on top of a mountain or some other dare-devil place? No! But I only have 35 days to create something beautiful for a lovely little girl. For those of you who do not spin or weave, this is hardly any time (about a 1/3 of the time I would comfortably like). I think knitters might understand – some knitting patterns look like they might take months, well add in time to MAKE your yarn first as well and you might begin to understand why I have called this an extreme project.

So who’s with me? I’ll keep adding to this post as the days roll by – lets see what happens – keep popping by for an update!

So, first things first design inspiration. What am I actually going to do? As I am short on time, there are considerations that would be a bit speedier to achieve if I incorporated them in as design inspiration.

Firstly spinning. It can only be longdraw (woolen) spinning for this project – if I spun worsted (short forward/backward draft) I would still be spinning the yarn requirements at the end of 35 days! But, a soft squishy woolen spun yarn is exactly what a baby needs luckily!

Secondly weaving. If I chose a nice light airy lace-like pattern, it would weave up quicker than a heavy dense pattern – and it would require less yarn so cut down on spinning time.

But this is where I start to run into problems. Most weavers would agree that lace-like patterns do not do well with woolen yarn. It can be done, but most weavers prefer cottons, linen, silk or even bamboo as the smoother slippery nature of these yarns helps the lacy pattern to develop as the yarns slide across each other. Wool on the other hand has a texture or ‘bite’, it will stick to itself and potentially full, and then won’t create a light open weave.

When looking through my fibre stash, I find a lot of creamy white Shetland top which spins up longdraw a treat. I think that this will be my base yarn. I also have Rose fibre – a new man made cellulose fibre with a silky like lustre. I decide that if I blend the Rose fibre with the Shetland top 50/50 it might impart some silkiness to the wool, and therefore enable me to pull off the difficult and weave lace with wool.

Whilst digging about my fibre stash, I also find a small quantity of Tussah silk in a very pale dusty rose colour, and an even smaller amount of Merino in a dark raspberry colour. My niece’s baby is called Martha – this is a summery name to me I think of hot sunny beaches and strawberries and cream (probably influenced by Martha and the Muffins’ Echo Beach). I know that christening shawls are always white, which seems impractical to me as babies and toddlers have some of the stickiest fingers! I decide to research a little bit into colour symbolism within the church; dusty rose is associated with love and joy in Christ (usually worn on specific sundays in Advent and Lent). Love and Joy seem very appropriate to a christening as well – I decide to blend the small amounts of dusty rose Tussah silk and dark raspberry Merino in with the Shetland and Rose fibre. I’m aiming for a light rose pink, in a raspberry ripple type marled colour effect in the finished yarn.

I’m still researching lace-like patterns – I’m thinking Spot Bronson or Huck lace? I think I’ll get on with the fibre prep whilst I decide on the pattern…

Its fibre preparation time!

I’ve got over 500g of fibre to blend – and only hand carders to do it! I would love a drum carder, but they are too pricey for me at the moment. 500g of fibre might not sound like a lot, but fibre is incredibly light. I weighed the Shetland and Rose fibres to make sure the blend is 50/50, but the small amounts of coloured fibre I divide up by eye as there is only a tiny bit and probably wouldn’t register on my scales!

It’s spinning time!

So, a rolag is taking me about 20 – 30 mins to spin up at the moment, and I’ve got 92 of them!!! That’s a lot of hours at the wheel.

It’s day 7 and I am starting to tire – who knew spinning was an endurance sport?! I’ve managed four skeins in five days to a total of 651m of plied yarn (but 1,302m of spun singles – that’s more than a km of yarn!).

I’m pleased with the skeins – there is a really subtle dusty rose colouring to the yarn, with a darker ripple in places. The Rose fibre is also coming through the blend and imparting a nice pearlescent sheen when held up to the light.

Today has been a rest day, I have never felt so tired after such a lot of spinning. There is snow capping the hills today on Mull (yes in march!), so it was nice to take the dog out in nature for a lovely long walk. I was a bit dubious about naming the blog ‘extreme project’, but at day 8 it does feel fitting!

I’ve always wanted to participate in Tour De Fleece (a spinning challenge where you try and spin every day the Tour de France is on in July, with some teams competing for most amount of yarn spun) – but I don’t know if I could – I’m obviously not built for endurance spinning!

Back to spinning tomorrow – I’ve got 32 rolags left and aim to do two more skeins which will take me at least 2 more days (days 9-10). See you then when I’ll chat about the lace pattern!

I was meant to get back to spinning after a rest day yesterday – I just needed a bit more of an extended break from the wheel. So today I tackled the problem of working out a suitable weaving pattern. As I’m on a deadline, I don’t really have time to make my own pattern. So I spent the day looking through all of my weaving books (a lovely day!) and looking online for inspiration.

I came across a weaving blog by Eva Stossel (a Powerhouse of weaving, a true inspiration) where she explored lace and spot weaves. The white on white 8 shaft spot weaves were exquisite – I was intrigued. I decided to warp my loom quickly with some old horrible yarn to see the patterns for myself. I only warped three pattern repeats, just enough to see what’s going on. My sample did not look like Eva’s beautiful white samples – the old grey yarn didn’t help! My sample did help me to understand the weave a bit more (spot weaves are not common in most weaving books). It sounds silly, even though I’d threaded the pattern repeat and knew it was based on a twill structure, it wasn’t until I’d woven the sample that I really understood that it was a type of twill. The handle and texture of the fabric was not what I was looking for – it was not open and lacy enough. I decided to look elsewhere for a pattern, but remained thankful to Eva for teaching me more about an unfamiliar weave.

My foray into spot weaves made me realise that having spent so much time carding fibre and then spinning a bespoke yarn, that I should keep the weave simple to let the yarn shine. So I went right back to basics and picked up Anne Dixon’s Handweaver’s Pattern Book (Quarto Publishing, 2007). Some of the lace weaves had quite a lot of tabby (plain weave) dispersed throughout the patterning (like Swedish lace). I chose Spot Bronson, as it could produce a nice all-over texture. I’ll post the weaving draft once I’ve made a digital one later.

Back to treadling the wheel! On day 11 I did a skein in a day, but the last skein took two days to day 13. I’m finished spinning!!!!

The final yardage is in – I spun 994m of plied yarn, or 1,988m of singles. That’s just 12m short of 2km. I think that’s a reasonable yardage for 8 days spinning.

Today was wash day for the skeins of yarn. We’ve just hit double digits today on the temperature for the first time this year, and its not raining – so time to get that yarn dancing on the washing line!

Rather bizarrely I’ve read a number of blogs about handspun yarn recently that have stated that only knitters need to wash their yarn, that weavers don’t need to as they finish their cloth at the end. That could be asking for trouble! Just like knitters, weavers too need to wash their handspun. Yarn isn’t finished until its finished – and that includes a quick dunk in the sink. Yarn can undergo quite a transformation on washing – something that you want to be in control of before you weave it up. Can you imagine spending hours at your loom, only to have your textile pucker, shrink, bubble or ripple when it is first washed? (obviously there are some clever weavers out there who use this technique to create textured cloth on purpose).

Washing the yarn also helps to tame it and ‘set the twist’. It evens out any irregularities along its length (such as too much twist in one section), and generally makes it more co-operative.

Fun fact – I wash my yarn in hand hot water with a dash of mild shampoo. If shampoo takes care of your hair without stripping it of essential oils, it will gently clean wool in the same way whilst keeping its shine and bounce – your yarn is worth it.

Today (and yesterday) I’ve been warping my 12 shaft floor loom with a 2m warp. I’ve chosen mixed warp and weft spots.

The weaving begins! I’m a bit concerned about the sett for spot bronson; too close and the wool will full and not provide the pattern, too loose and it will be an unstable cloth for a baby blanket.

I initially sleyed the reed at 1-1-0-1-1 on a 10 dents per inch (d.p.i) reed. This sample was too closely sett, but not by much. I think I also overly agitated the sample as I washed it, so have learnt my lesson there – I do not want the final blanket to felt.

I’ve re-sleyed the reed at 1-1-0-1-0 on a 10 d.p.i reed. I haven’t really got any extra length on my warp to keep sampling – so will press on with weaving from here.

Today I’ve managed to find the time to weave up 50 cm.

I’ve kind of had to switch my focus over the last 10 days – I need to get handmade skeins ready for craft markets. So its been back to the wheels for a while. I need to find the time to finish off the weaving!