New Shawl - Maya

I am making a shawl from Kristin Omdahl's Wrapped in Crochet for my sister in law.

I am making this using Sublime Tussah silk yarn in Mulberry - I have no idea why it is called mulberry, its not purple at all, at a push it has a slightly blueish tint.

The yarn is a 50% Tussah silk/50% viscose blend.  I hope you can see from this photograph how wonderfully shiny the tussah is.

I'm not that far through making it, I've got the medallion band at the bottom done so far.

Its difficult to see the effect of the yarn in the wider shot, so I took a close-up as well.  I think it was a good yarn choice.

Getting to grips with handspun

I've been spending quite a bit of time peddling away on my spinning wheel (Ashford Traveller), trying out various fibres and trying to get the hang of it.  I'm pretty sure I've not got a classic style or indeed spin "properly" but to be honest as long as I create something I'd be able to make something with then surely thats OK?

Here's some of my efforts, some more successful than others as you can see.  The big blue ball sitting on top is Merino/Silk blend and was lovely to spin - this is done 3 ply (as is the brown ball that its sitting on).

At the other end of the scale is the ball of silk (over on the left), that was really tricky to spin - if you have rough hands (as I do all winter!) the fibre sticks to your hands and the fluff gets everywhere.  Also I didn't realise just how much twist you need to put into silk.  For a first attempt I'm not too disappointed, its a little inconsistent and there are a fair few fluffy bits in the yarn - but overall its OK, and good enough for me to try making a little lacy scarf with it.  I'll post the results of that adventure when I get closer to finishing.

The others are camel - right at the front, merino in the middle, generic "wool" at the back and the black one at the right side is black shetland.

I'll post again with close up photos of the yarns when I get a moment.

What to do with a large Irish Rose??

I got this absolutely beautiful silk & mohair blend yarn, and decided to make another rose.  I wanted to make a larger one this time which is why I chose this yarn.  I used Rowan Silk Twist.

The photographs don't really capture how luxurious this yarn is.



So as you can see the flower worked out at around 7" across, so quite large really. Now I am struggling for what to do with it.


Typically I make these as embellishments for bags or as brooches. But this one is a bit large for a brooch and it’s just too nice to be an embellishment.

My thought was perhaps to make a long headband and attach this? What do you think?