Linoprinting Part Two

 

I wrote a few weeks ago about the linoprinting course that my son and and I were doing, but forgot to show you our final prints. I had decided to try to make Christmas cards, so sorry family, but hopefully by next year you may have forgotten. I was quite pleased with my single colour prints, but then the teacher showed me how to cut a piece out of the lino and use it as a stamp for the red breast.

My son was more ambitious and did his prints with two sheets of lino, and several layers of colour by masking out certain sections. His prints are of Hornet, who is a character from Hollow Knight.

On the last week I thought I would have a go at doing a two sheet print, which although I think the concept was not too bad, I was not careful enough linking up my two prints. As you can see below. But now the course is over I have ordered a roller and some paint, and am going to try again at home.

 

Moths - The Good and the Bad

Moths in a woollen mill are a very bad thing. I have been told that they can very quickly reduce fleece or wool to a pile of dust, and so the wool stocks are kept sealed in what are essentially like large plastic sandwich bags, and I think every so often the whole building is fumigated. 

But moths at home are not much better, and I recently found that the one bear I had kept from my Teddy Bear pattern had been nibbled by moths. Poor Ted had to spend a while in my freezer, as this is meant to kill the moths, and any grubs or eggs too. (I probably should have warned my daughter that I had put him there!) I decided that darning was the best solution, and as my darning skills are not great, it was best to just going with making the darns very obvious. On his bottom he has two tradional woven darns, and the arms are my attempt at swiss darning. Even his little scarf had a hole. 

The house has now been scattered with cedar balls, as I don't really like the smell of traditional moth balls, and I have lavender hanging in the airing cupboard. But I don't want to put off all the moths.

Just to show that moths are not all bad, here are a few pictures of moths I have taken in my house in the last year. I think, but am not totally sure, that these bigger moths are not the main culprits for eating wool, so all of them were carefully put out doors. The first one is an elephant hawk moth, next a drinker, the yellow one a brimstone, the one on the green leaf might be a buff ermine, I think the last one is another type of ermine moth. Happy to be corrected on any of this! 

 

Bam-boozle

Bam-boozle is the new range of wool at Blacker Yarns. (The name kind of makes me laugh, as I just keep imagining Joey from Friends saying let's play Bam-boozle - such a cool name! Please use your wicked wango card if making a purchase. My daughter has just told me that this will make no sense, even to people like us who have Friends Trivial Pursuit, so click on Friends if you want an explanation.) 

Initially this is available in three colours, but the range may be extended if it is received well. Bamboo is a great substitute fibre to use in sock knitting, as it is antibacterial, hypoallergenic, thermo-regulating and absorbs moisture. Ideal for socks, lacey knits or light weight sweaters.

 

For the photographs I started off with the idea of finding some growing bamboo as a background, but this proved very difficult. We visited my daughter in Brighton, and I thought I had a perfect backdrop, as there was some lovely bamboo in the local park. My family all seemed to disappear, as I climbed a little fence to get near the bamboo, but somehow it was impossible to place the wool anywhere except near the base of the plant, where it was too dark, and not very bamboo looking. 

So plan B was once back home to use some of my bamboo beanpoles. Much easier to control the lighting, and I was really pleased with the final shots.

Taking these shots for the website and social media is my favourite part of my new job. It is really fun thinking of a way to highlight the lovely wools in an appropriate way, and I still get a bit of a thrill when I see my photos used. 

There are already two lovely kits available on the website, one for socks Fish Trail Socks and the other for a lacy scarf, Olsok Scarf, using this wool.

 

Romney Guernsey Wool

 

A few photos of the new Romney Guernsey range of wool at Blacker Yarns, where I work. Sadly they didn't send me to the Channel Islands, but the sea at Bude was a good place to get the perfect beach and fisherman feeling. 

The colours of this range are great, and I particularly like the really dark navy, which seems very authentic. As a teenager I knitted myself two guernseys, one navy and one cream, which were part of my wardrobe for many years.

Blacker Yarns have some lovely guernsey patterns: The Anchor Gansey and The Traditional Guernsey, or if you want to buy the wool and pattern together you can explore the kit page. The Crossing Cable Sweater kit is brand new today, modelled by one of my colleague in the mill.

Linoprinting

I am a little aghast at how long it is since I posted anything on this blog. So to start a very belated Happy New Year! 

Often at the turn of the year I set out my plans, but as this rarely works out, I think this year I will keep it a bit vague. I have been crafting away, and there will be new photos of some of the ranges of yarn where I work when they are released. I also am writing a knitting pattern for a baby set (3 patterns in one), which is taking me far longer than it really should. Apart from that I am sure there will be more from the veg garden, and probably some wildlife photographs.

My son and I have been enjoying learning to linoprint - and are half way through a course in Tavistock. The first week we learned the basics of carving into the lino, and the whole class were set the project of a positive and negative leaf. The second session we started printing, and the picture above shows my most successful prints, and the one below my son's.

The most exciting prints were when we overlaid the positive and negative images, and I think my son was more successful with this, as he had actually thought about how his two images would work together as he was carving. The course is nearly all ladies of my age, and they also seemed to love his bright choices of ink.

So next week we are given free rein to work on whatever we choose. I have an idea, so watch out family for some homemade Christmas cards, while my son is going to do a character from gaming!

Westcountry Tweed Photographs

Thinking of a place to photograph the new Westcountry Tweed range at Blacker Yarns my first thought was to return to Wistman's Wood, which I last visited in the summer some two years ago. It seemed like it would be the perfect place - with the grey granite boulders, beautiful green mosses, rust-coloured bracken, and the mysterious lichen-covered twisted limbs of the tress.

As you will see it did not let me down. Wistman's Wood is one of the few high altitude oakwoods in Britain, and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Last time we visited you could walk into the woodland, but there are now little signs asking that you walk around. It is such a special place, and even on a cold autumn day there were so many visitors walking up the hill to see it, that I think this is a good restriction.

My second idea was to try to photograph the wool on Dartmoor with some sheep in the background. I had really underestimated how hard this would be. To place the skeins of wool nicely in front of the sheep, who are pretty much free to roam did not work out at all. Apart from the sheep constantly running away, we also had an angry man accusing us of stealing the moss from his wall. I guess with my big bag full of wool and camera equipment I might have looked a bit suspicious. Is there really a market in moss?

So my next idea was to find some sheep in a field, where at least they would be contained. Even this was difficult, as when the sheep were fairly near, the foreshortening made them look very distant. This is actually a view across the Tamar Valley towards Kit Hill.

A second attempt near Brentor, where the sheep were a bit closer. I could not have got any of these shots without my lovely long-suffering husband hovering in the car, as I clambered across ditches and tried to balance the wool and camera in a suitable position, without scaring off the sheep.

But at the end of a long afternoon we finally found a "sheep super model". I realise I am now going to show rather too many photos, but I wanted to illustrate how this particular sheep was really interested in what I was up to, and started heading across the field to see. She also was a particularly fine looking sheep. She was so helpful that in the end I took a few photos focusing on her instead of the wool skeins.

"Did you get my good side?"

So now I just have to give some thought to the next wool, which contains bamboo. Can I get a panda to cooperate so nicely.

Christmas Sale Reminder

Just a little reminder about my Christmas Pattern Sale on ravelry. All of the patterns below are 50% off if you use the code GINXMAS22, which is valid until Christmas Day. Or if you want to make a Christmas Love Heart, that pattern is free.

Christmas Arctic Hare

Christmas Baby Penguin

Christmas Bird

Christmas Elephants

Christmas Polar Bear

Christmas Sand Dollar Decoration

Christmas Tree Decoration

Little Minnows

Scallop

Spiral Shells

Starfish

Tiny Clog Decoration