WAL updated!

Felicity Ford on

A flurry of emails later, we have an updated WAL gallery of projects to share – look at all the glorious creativity with wool that has happened this WOVEMBER… hurrah! We will announce the winners soon.

HO-HO hat knitted from Jamieson’s Spindrift and fulled; Retro Norwegian Hat by Tanis Gray is made from vintage 100% wool; Hat and mittens made from vintage 100% wool.

HO HO HO hat worked in 100% WOOL Shetland yarn, then fulled
HO HO HO hat worked in 100% WOOL Shetland yarn, then fulled

Three hats and one pair of mittens – Diane Gerlach (who says “I guess it must be all these hats that have prevented me from finishing my Wovember jumper!”)

I started keeping Leicester longwool sheep last year due to them being such a rare UK breed.

They are such fantastic sheep, each brimming with their own personality.

I had my first lambs this year

And my first shearing – This was done by a young man in his final year of agricultural college – a fantastic chap George who really knows his stuff and coped very well with my girls (who are all rather large)!

I’m determined to make full use of my lovely longwool fleeces but am pretty novice at all things creative, so this is my first project:

Dyeing the fleece
And then weaving it onto a pegloom to make a rug.

Photos of sheep and progress enclosed.

Hope to move on to trying felting and spinning when the rug is finished.

– peg loom rug by Lee Hawkins

My Wovember WAL project was my Wovember Icelandic. The photo is attached, and details are on my Ravelry project page http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Lindragon/iunn
Made with 100% Icelandic wool.

I felt that I learned a great deal with this project, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

yoke cardigan worked in Icelandic Lopi
yoke cardigan worked in Icelandic Lopi

– cardigan by Linda Drage

Wool cowl with Noro yarn

– cowl by Leslie Bryan

This year for Wovember 2014, I used up some Foula Wool from a Kate Davies “Tea Jenny” kit to make myself a hat. This was my first try at a corrugated ribbing, and I found that I loved doing it.

hat made from foula wool
hat made from foula wool

This tunic is made with artisan spun New Zealand wool that I found on eBay a few years ago. The pattern for this tee is my own. I can’t seem to stop knitting the feather & fans pattern. It goes well with any kind of yarn from lace to the bulkiest. The tunic took me just 4 days to knit up. I still need to wash and block it, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

tunic made from new zealand wool
tunic made from new zealand wool

– hat and tunic by Kathy Burnett

I designed this Loon hat last year using Quince and Co American wool, and am looking forward to knitting several more.

hat worked in Quince and Co American wool
hat worked in Quince and Co American wool
hat worked in Quince and Co American wool
hat worked in Quince and Co American wool

This the first half of a pair of mittens that I am making. The yarn in this mitten is from Icelandic sheep wool raised in Denmark. I bought the yarn directly from the farmer at a festival in Roskilde, Denmark in 2013. I also got to meet a few members of the flock! I associate this wool with my memories of an especially wonderful day, and am exciting about wearing my mittens this winter. More information is on my Ravelry Project page (http://www.ravelry.com/projects/ErinJoelle/viking-mittens).

mitten worked in Icelandic sheep wool raised in Denmark
mitten worked in Icelandic sheep wool raised in Denmark

– hat and mitten by Erin Redding

Inside Castle Fraser (Aberdeenshire, Scotland) is a little room, with a woodcarving of a standard-bearer sheep in a recess on the wall. Of French origins, the Fraser family descends from continental settlers, as part of the Norman infiltration in the 12th century. The Scottish standard-bearer sheep is strangely similar to the emblem of a large city in Normandy, France.

These cosy mittens link both sheep, as they face each other and proudly stand on the back of the hand.
Stranded throughout, with a thin knitted lining, The Woodcarving mittens are worked with Shetland wool, as a nod to the French standard-bearer sheep, symbol of the guild of drapers and woollen cloth traders.

The Woodcarving, by Aurelie Colas (pattern to be published early December 2014 – using Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift in 12 colours for the outer shell, and Jamieson’s Ultra for the lining)

mittens worked in Jamieson's of Shetland wool
mittens worked in Jamieson’s of Shetland wool

– mittens by Aurelie Colas

I have nearly finished making a rug from a Blue Texel fleece and I shall call it Dappled Thing.

This has been a huge pleasure of headlong spinning and never mind the lumps, yarn fatter or thinner as the mood of the evening took me; crocheted to go with the flow of a skein, it holds my glory in a landscape plotted and pieced – for anyone else, it’s a bathmat.

I will be completing it tonight and blogging about the process this Friday on wooltribulations.blogspot.com

bathmat worked in handspun and crocheted wool
bathmat worked in handspun and crocheted wool

– bathmat by Fran Rushworth

Hand spun Shetland wool knit in to squares to make blanket. Using natural colours of Shetland wool.
Great experience as only started spinning in February.

– blanket by Liz Fraser