it will take me a while, but I’ve finally decided to open a little online shop. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and busily making yarn whilst I weighed up the pros and cons. But now, my mind is made up, so I’m beavering away in the background to get it off the ground.
It will be Etsy, because I think to start, building up a base is difficult on your lonesome! And then we’ll see how it goes.
I have a fairly large stash of two plies and art yarn, which I am working my way through organising, but also some lovely fleece from this summers dye sessions. So, it will all be going on.
For now, here’s a sneaky peak at a few piccies which will be winging their way to the new “premises” .
Love and light
Michelle xx

I have been asked to give a bit more detail of how I make batts.  There are lots of videos on youtube that I think are very helpful, but everyone has their own method, so although I don't do youtube vids, here is a visual break down of how I make a batt.
First of all I get colour inspiration.  Sometimes I use a colour app and play around until I have a combination I am happy with.  This is the one used this time

Then I go to the colour store (where the fleece is kept) and choose as close to the colours as I can find.

This is what I came up with. They are all merino. (The colours in real life are a bit different - I never cease to be amazed at how different they look when photographed.  These were in natural light as well!)

So next job is to weigh equal amounts of my colours.  Sometimes I want a dominance of one colour or two over the others, in which case I just do a percentage calculation.  With the colours above, it was equal, so I weighed 25g of each.  I usually make 2 batts with the same ingredients, with a total weight of 100g.
Then I start making the batt.  I lay out a layer of one colour and then a layer of another.  In the combo above I chose to put the red and blue together in layers and the green and yellow in layers.

Then I take the next two colours and do the same.  Sometimes I stripe them, but this time I layered.  The reason I put a couple of layers on, is so that there is a base of wool to hold in the next funky stuff to be added.

Then I add whatever I fancy to make it a bit more interesting.  I go to my goodies box.  My daughter made this up for me originally.  It contains cashmere nepps, sparkles by way of angelina, gold yarn and lurex, silk caps, odd bits of fibre, and my absolute favourite, sari silk fibre.

When using different fibres to add, especially sari silk fibre, the threads are short, so I always layer it between some fleece, so that it catches on properly.

I also add sparkles in a sandwich, as above, but add the silk directly to the big drum.  The reason for this is that the silk threads are long and could tangle, so I wind the drum and as I am doing so, pull the silk cap fibres onto the drum.  This is difficult to show in a picture, because you can barely see the silk.

And finally, the batt off the drum.  As a lot of the interest is sandwiched, it is a bit hard to see what is going on, but if you could see all the colours and sparkles - well, it is lovely, even if I do say so myself.

So there you have it.  A batt from first thoughts to finished.  I love creating them.  And then I adore spinning them.
Happy New Year by the way.  May 2016 be an absolute cracker!