Last year, one of the goals for the year was to knit a jumper for each of us. I only managed one.. But have higher hopes for this year. Well we shall see.
The problem with the jumper for himself, was settling on a colour. He wanted a jumper from our own wool, dyed ourselves, and hand spun. Fair enough – the ideal of being self sufficient in jumpers is very appealing! But he could not decide on a colour.
Not knowing how much yarn it will take, we wanted to stay away from a solid colour, as we would have to dye the right quantity to start with, whereas a blend would be (I hope) more forgiving. I like to blend colours on the carder, prior to spinning, and use at least three colours. Himself became indecisive (his favourite colour is ‘warm’) and the jumper never started.
This year, I took matters into my own hands, choose the combination, dyed and experimented to get the right colours, blended the batt, and the finished skein was produced and himself approves.
I’m stalling now.. on knitting a test piece. I love how the wool looks in skein form… what if it does not look so nice knitted up….
I’ve finished the home spun black jumper – how long has that been? more than a year… and of course, I’ve made it just in time for the warmer weather… it is very warm (and himself’s favourite colour is warm). To add a little interest, I put in the couple of stripes of brownish wool. Both fleeces were given to us, the black I think is a zwartbles, but I’m not sure, the brown was a dunno sheep, and we had little hope for this fleece – it was half felted, and full of muck, yet actually became nice yarn in the end. The zwartbles was really easy to spin, himself says, and we were told the other would be impossible… well he had to then!
I’m really stoked, because this is our first fleece to jumper we have made – we both washed and carded it, himself spun it, and I knitted it – and yes it’s a simple pattern, but I just made it up as I went along.
I finished making a bag using wool from my stash, and the little packet of threads my friend in New Zealand sent over for Christmas. I left out the very garish green thread, but used the others, in a block style for the front flap of the bag – knitting one plain, one textured stitching and one with the coloured thread. Under the flap the bag is plain, and the back of the bag has stripes of the coloured threads. A simple I-cord to finish it off. 
I’ve started a new project.. and it’s going to be purple.
Himself has finished spinning the navy blue and green merino. The spinning was accompanied by lots of cursing, so I get the impression it was harder to work with then our own wool!
