Moving day – flyttedag

Hello all!

It is time for a new start, so I have decided to end this blog and open up my own site here:

www.mycrafts.dk

Det er tid til en frisk start, så jeg har besluttet at  slutte bloggen her og har i stedet åbnet min egen side på ovenstående link.

Kathe

 

 

Angora rabbit babies

It has been a very harsh winther for people and beasts alike, we have lost all our poultry (except one old bantam hen) to a couple of very hungry foxes, and three newborn litters were frozen to death.
Very sad, but life goes must go on…
Two litters have survived, the oldest ones were born February 7th.
Two are jet black, one is black with some white coat hairs and a white foot – one is grey with white coat hairs on half the body. I have never seen any like those two before!

Here is a black and the black with white hairs

And here is the grey one. It will be interesting to see how they turn out when they grow up!

The next litter was born Feb. 17th, I took the chance and moved the entire nest into an emergency cage in our greenhouse, hoping the mum would not find it too disturbing. She was fine about it, and they are doing well. On these pictures they are about 18 days old, have just got their eyes open and have started jumping about and munching on food.

Irresistable!

The big white fluff is mums bum…

More babies are on the way, hopefully!

Comparing types of angora 1

Last post I presented the various types of angora I have in my stall – now it is time to make a controlled experiment to see how the different types react under wear and tear.

I decided to spin a series of singles, ply them with the same colour of shetland wool (very ligth fawn-grey-ish), and then the plan is to knit a modular scarf.

The first difference precented itself during the spinning process. With the yarn wound around the bobbin, you can easily see the amount of “fluff” sticking out, against the end of bobbin:

spun satin

spun type 1. the wool in the background is the one i used for plyeing these angora.

spun type 2. Note the absence of fluffy guard hairs!

You can already here see the difference in fluffyness.

After spinning, plyeing, washing and not least, drying in a dryer for 10 minutes (hot), when the yarn is almost dry, this adds statics to the fiber and make them stand straight out. Besides, any loose fibers get caught in the filter of your dryer, and is a good way to check if your yarn will shed.

It came out like this:

From left, type one, type 2 and sating. pure shetland is lying across.

and close ups:

Angora type 1

Angora type 2

angora satin

All that remains now is to knit the scarf, and see how it wears. I will make a report on it in a while.

Should you be interested in trying these types of angora for your self – contact me and get a list of what is available.

Angora spinning fiber supply

I have decided to part with some of my angora stash, it keeps growing, funny that – with app. 12 breeding rabbits what can you expect!

The fiber can be purchased at £3 pr 50 g, contact me for details.

Today I managed to get some good pictures of my angora rabbit fiber, showing the colours I have in my stash.

top: red and white, bottom: brown and black

My own rabbits are black and white, but sometimes I can get good fibers in other colours from other breeders, so always ask, and I will be happy to send you pictures of what is available.

Remember that colours vary on individual animals, so there will be lighter and darker versions of what you see here.

Here are some close-ups:

red and brown angora

These are both the traditional Danish (German) angora type, called type 1 from now on.

Type 1 angora

This is also the type 1 angora, white and black.

type 2 angora

This is the new type 2 angora, that I am going to concentrate on in the future.

The grey is a pure type 2, the white is type1/type2 crossbred.

Compare this with the picture above, and notice the lack of guard hairs!

And what is all this about type 1 and type 2???

Well, when angora rabbits got their first boom in Denmark around WWII, the fashion demanded a quite fluffy look to the angora garments, and the standards for judging the rabbits was set after the demands of the yarn producers, of course.

There has been several ups and downs in angora breeding since then, but the original standards remain the same. A lot of serious work has been done by breeders who has done a lifetime worth of improving the breed, so today the rabbits yield lots more.

The angora fur has two different types of hairs, the thin, soft undercoat, and the long straight guard hairs. It is the guard hairs that makes angora products look fluffy, and the undercoat that is responsible for the felting ability.

According to the standards angoras should have 5-10% guard hairs, the more the better. This is to prevent felting in the finished yarn, however, it makes you look like a candyfloss when wearing an angora garment.

All registered breeding animals has to be judged by these rules, and this is the official Danish angora that I name Type1.

Now, Nette, a friend of mine has for a number of years run a breeding program of her own, to produce angoras without guard hairs (or as little as possible), and she has come a long way with that project. This has only been possible because she has bred the angoras for herself and her spinning and knitting, and have never had the rabbits judged by authorized judges.

The result is that garments made of her angora does not look like candyfloss – it is warm and soft like all angora, but much more to my personal liking.

So I have got my new breeding animals from her, and plan to continue her brilliant work, by crossing her angoras with my selected Danish and Danish/satin crossbreds. First generation is looking very promising!

This is the Type 2 angora, and what I will be producing in the future, if all goes well, in black and white.

You can see some of Nette’s angora knitwear here:

http://lapinette.dk/Angora.htm

I will try to find more pictures of Type 1 versus Type 2 fiber, yarn and garment, to show the difference.

Hmm…perhaps I should do some controlled experiments, making for instance one mitten of type 1, and one of type 2, use them together and see how they differ? Or find some volunteers to do it?

However, I still have type 1 animals, and some type 1 wool in my stash, and that is the wool I may be able to get from other breeders.

Jeg er her endnu – I am still here…

Det er længe siden jeg har haft energi til at blogge, og så er det nemt at glemme….

Men selvom ting nu tager længere for mig end før, så laver jeg da stadig lidt – og indimellem er der også ting i overskud, som andre spindere/strikkere kan få glæde af, i form af farvet garn eller fibre.

Bestillinger har jeg svært ved at håndtere, så tingene bliver sat på her når der er noget, så hold øje med denne kanal fremover!

Og skulle der være specielle ønsker/udfordringer, så kontakt mig endelig – man skal aldrig sige aldrig!

It’s been a long time since my last blog, easy to get out of habit…

But even though things take a bit longer for me than usual, I still produce a bit  – and every now and then more than I can use, but which other spinners/knitters might enjoy, like dyed yarns and fibers.

It is hard for me to handle preorders, so I’ll just announce things here, whenever, so keep an eye on this channel!

If you have any special wishes/challenges, don’t hesitate to ask – you never know!

Green tank top

I found the picture of the green tank top, of which I showed details of the cut-and-sew process in an earlier post.

Now it is well worn – I love it! made of silk/wool yarn it is warm enough and cool enough for most temperatures. I am certainly going to make more of those for the summer…

My Nicole II kimono

One thing I finished this winter, and am quite satisfied with, is my Nicole II kimono, handknit in a wool/cotton mix yarn that I dyed, on 3 mm needles.

First time i saw this pattern was a small presentation picture in an old German magazine, Nicole, from sometime in the ’80′s. I search high and low for a long time for the issue with the pattern, and FINALLYa kind soul found it and send it to me.

The original pattern is a combination of knit/purl stitches for the horisontal rows, and fishermans rib for the vertical.

That I didn’t have the patience for, so I changed the pattern completely to a knit/purl pattern:

You are welcome to use this pattern, for personal use only, though.

It was fun to knit, and quite quickly to learn.

Machine knitted Clapotis scarf – maskin strikket clapotis tørklæde

 Opskriften kan evt oversættes ved hjælp af translater.google.com, indsæt url’en fra denne post. Og ellers spørg hvis der er noget der er uklart.

 

Inspired by Kate Gilbert http://www.kategilbert.com/ms_clapotis.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have made a few hand knitted Clapotis scarves and wanted to try it out on the knitting machine.

 

This particular scarf was made in a very thin boucle mohair, tension 10 on a standard knitter.

Use any yarn that is not too slippery, or the stitches either side of the ladders will glide. Use a looser tension than you would knitting stocking stitch.

You need a garter bar, a thin metal rod or a thin circular knitting needle to remove the stitches from one side of the machine to the other.

 

For this width (app.35 cm) of scarf I cast on at needle 60 -59,  If you want to make it wider or narrower, choose another place in the needle bed to begin accordingly.

If in doubt, just start in the middle of the needle bed, and transfer the stitches to the side when you are satisfied with the width.

Cast on 3 stitches, knit 2 rows. Now increase one stitch in the end of each row until the side of the triangle equals the width you want your scarf to be.

 

 

As you can see, I have increased stitches all the way to the left side of the needle bed.

Now it is time to drop every 6^th stitch. Locate the 5 middle stitches and start either side from there. Let the stitches fall, BUT REMEMBER TO PUT THE NEEDLES BACK IN WORKING POSITION!

 

 From now on you decrease one stitch on the left hand side, and keep increasing on the right hand side, on every other row.

There will be new stitches formed on the needles where you dropped them before, but you will drop these stitches with regular intervals and this way complete the ladders all the way down through the knitting.  The dropped stitches will need a bit of help running all the way down, especially if you have used fluffy yarn or boucle as I did.

Pay attention to which needles it is to be dropped, if possible mark them with a felt tip pen or something.

Looking at the ongoing decreases on your left edge, every time you get to a marked needle, let that and all the other stitches drop before continuing you decrease. Remember pick up the stitch on the empty needle and work it like any other stitch you are decreasing, to maintain correct number of stitches.

At the same time you will form new ladders at the right side, as you continue letting every 6^th stitch drop.

This way the knitting will gradually wander from the left to the right side of your needle bed, and when you can’t take it any further, transfer all the stitches onto a garter bar (alternatively a thin circular needle or thin metal rod), and move them back to the left side of the machine. Continue knitting until you are satisfied with the length of your scarf.

VARIATION: An option, I haven’t tried yet – when reaching the right side of the needle bed, instead of transferring the stitches to the left, one could reverse the increase/decrease, and work back towards the left side – this will make an angular scarf instead of a straight one.

Once you are happy with the length of your scarf you start decreasing on the right side as you are already doing on your left – still remember to drop stitches regularly as before. Continue till you have 2 stitches left, cast off.

The scarf I made of this thin yarn was 3,5 meters long, and the sides were different, so it was a bit of a challenge to stabilize it.

First I pulled two equal lengths of smooth nylon string along the edges, and stretched the lot out on the floor, with some old sheets underneath. This enabled me to adjust the sides, and steam the work thoroughly.

 

 

 

But I needed more support along the edges, so I cut strips of water soluble fabric and pinned it on the edges, before removing the nylon string.

Then I used my sewing machine to sew the water soluble fabric onto the edge, first with a narrow zigzag, and on top of that a straight seam.

I then rinsed the scarf to remove the fabric, and was now left with a stable, but very thin seam at the edges. I then crocheted around this with a matching colour, and after this keeping the shape was no problem.

A final steam made the last finish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malte

About a week ago Malte came to live with us, and though Nøvsen in the beginning was a bit upset and had to show him his place sometimes in a bit of a hard way, they are now good friends doing everything together.

Nøvsen is never bored anymore, and it is just so joyful to watch them play. Some people said why on earth another dog, but here you see why:

For omkring en uge siden flytte Malte ind hos os, og selv om Nøvsen i begyndelse var noget sur og måtte vise ham hans plads nogen gange på den hårde måde, så er de nu bedste venner der gør alting sammen.

Nøvsen keder sig aldrig mere, og det er bare så herligt at se dem lege. Nogen sagde til os, hvorfor i alverden en hund mere, men se her hvorfor:

Time to say goodbye…..tid at sige farvel

Tomorrow the kittens are leaving for their new homes – they are about 11 weeks old now, and as well as cute, they ar viscious little bastards! In other words, we are looking forward to a bit of piece and quiet after this kitten adventure. But they have been fun, and given us many laughs, and cheer up many grey days. They will be missed, but they are going to live with friends of us, so we can follow their development.

I have collected a cavalcade of pictures from the last weeks:

I morgen forlader killingerne os, og flytter ind hos deres nye ejere – de er omkring 11 uger nu, og ligeså søde de er, ligeså krigeriske er de også! Med andre ord, vi glæder os til lidt fred og ro efter dette killinge eventyr. Men det har været sjovt, de har givet os mangen en sund latter og lysnet op på mangen en grå dag. De vil blive savnet, men de skal bo hos venner af os, so vi kan følge deres opvækst.

Jeg har samlet en kavalkade af billeder fra de sidste uger:

Good luck  little ones!

Held og lykke, i små nus!