Christmas Decorations

The start of the Christmas decorations made from wrapped wool.  These are for the tables,  all white for them,  with a moss green for the base sprinkled with snow

Wool Batts for Christmas Decorations

The wool dyed now with no more mishaps and all carded with lots of Angelina through it.   Now the fun begins,  am I mad I have to make over 30 Christmas trees of different sizes by the end of the month

Yarns Apart

Here I have two yarns 'Malachite' made from the Jacob fleece is tough and chunky and would make a great outdoor garment keeping out wind and rain..  A great colour with the natural black of the Jacob showing through and the white dyed a vibrant green.
'Pixie Dust'  is a delicate yarn about DK weight and fairy light to touch and feel.  It could be made up into a lovely evening garment and would look good knitted or crocheted in a lacey pattern.  It has silver Angelina worked through the yarn

Pixie Dust

I am working on this yarn at the moment and the visiting children, all under 6 years, called it Pixie Dust.  It is a mixture of cerise pink, pale rose pink and grey with a lot of silver Angelina.  It is almost a pity to spin it as it looks like clouds of pink dust when it is passed through the diz.  I am spinning it as finely as I am able and I think it will make a details on clothes for the evening on a Winter night

Getting ready for Christmas

Starting to dye wool fiber for making Christmas decorations for Markree Castle Hotel.  This year I am hoping to run a theme throughout the whole hotel.  Lots of little coloured trees everywhere.  This is the first dye lot drying in the sun.  I managed to forget it on the cooker last night and it boiled over and now I have a pale pink worktop.  They will keep me busy as all this has to be carded to give a smooth finish and I will mix a little Angelina through to give some glitter

Market Stall

All my yarn and felting/spinning fiber on show at the Etsy market in Dublin.  A few bits and pieces sold and hopefully good PR

Dyed Jacob Sheep Yarn

This yarn is spun from a fleece from a neighbouring farm.  Richard, the farmer,  runs a farm that takes school trips and has one or two Jacob sheep.   He gives me the fleece to spin.  the fleece is two tone, dark brown/grey and white.  I have washed it and then carded it, then spun it and dyed it.  I only did 4 skeins as a trial as I was a little unsure how they would come out.   They are yellower than show on my monitor and it is a chunky yarn.  It should knit up to make a very warm garment and could be used to make a design with plain Jacob yarn.  I sell it at only €9.60 for 80gms as it is much quicker to prepare and not a soft as my Wensleydale,  above all takes half the time to prepare 

Jacob Fleece

  I got this fleece from a neighbour Richard they run school trips to their farm in the Spring and keep one or two rare breeds of sheep and so have two jacob sheep.   I have just started to wash the first fleece and I took these photos of it drying in the Autumn sunshine.   Now I am busy carding it and will probably spin it into a chunky yarn and then dye it.  When dyed the natural dark brown should remain much the same and the white take up thre color.  Worth a try anyway,    I

Wensleydale X Suffolk Batts

This  Batt is from the wool from  Susie's lamb who you see here walking across the field just days before she was shorn.   She had the most amazing amount of wool and I now have it all washed and only a little left to dye.   I decided to offer some Batts on my Etsy website as I have so much wool to work with.   I have carded this only once on my drum carder but I can put it through again which will blend the colors more and give a smoother Batt which in turn should give a more even yarn.  I can also put it through my diz to make a roving ready to spin.  If you would like it made into a yarn just contact me and I will get back with a price. I have over 400 gms.  It will make a lovely yarn and also can be used for wet or needle felting 

New Yarns

The latest of my yarns and a bit different from my usual as these are two yarns in soft colors,  both have the same yellow one with a grey background and the other with baby blue..   The baby blue dye is one of my new dyes made by Gaywool.   I am trying these dyes as they seem to have a good range of soft colors.   When I try getting pale colors using less dye powder all that happens is I get a very uneven dye.  These are up on my Etsy web site  www.etsy.com/shop/MarkreeWoolCraft  but may not last long as I have very little of both

Hand Spun Wool Locks

This is a trial run spinning my Wensleydale locks.  I can not 'tail' spin as I do not have a Jumbo Flyer and so I have spun each lock on individually and the plied two yarns together.  This is difficult because it gets caught up the whole time.  All very slow but it does give a very different effect.  My grand daughter calls this 'bubbly wool'   I am sending this sample to one of my regular costumers to give it a go and see if it is good enough to sell.  If I were selling this I would have to call it 'Markree Woodland'

Wensleydale Locks

This is a new project for me.  These are lovely Wensleydale locks made from the wool from last years' lambs. I took the photo just before shearing.   The wool has these lovely locks and I have dyed these with two different greens and produced the locks which I call  'Ocean Spray'    They can be used in felting projects and for tail spinning.   As I am working with the fleece I will gradually build a variety of locks dyed in different colours.   Sadly I cannot spin them myself as my Donegal wheel does not have a jumbo flyer.

Autumn Glory

This is my latest yarn,  all autumnal colors.  A basic green with browns, reds and yellows.  The really exciting thing about it is that I spun much finer than my usual yarns and it has a 12 to 14 wpi.  I have not finished spinning it all yet and still have to set the spin and then I will be listing it on my Etsy website

A Big Day for the Lambs

Today my lambs were weaned.  The photos were taken about an hour after they had been separated from their Mums.  They do not seem to be too bothered and are enjoying some young sweet grass.   All the lambs near the edge of the field seem to be the cross bred lambs.   Heads all shapes and colours.   The main thing is that neither Mums nor the lambs seemed to be too disturbed

A busy day

Pure Wensleydale Fleece Drying

Wnsleydale X Suffolk Yarn

  Dyed Wensleydale X Suffolk Wool

A busy day today starting with washing some pure Wensleydale fleece and setting the spin on the yarn that I have spun from the fiber that is seen in an earlier blog on my drum carder.  A sunny day and all these were dry by the evening and now I have to weigh and measure the hanks of yarn and think of a name for it.

The pure Wensleydale wool is still pretty dirty but by the time I have teased it out most of the dirt will have fallen out as it has no lanolin to hold it.  I intend to spin this without dying it.  You can see how different it is to the Wensleydale cross fleece

The last photo is of Wensleydale X Suffolk which has for some reason taken the dye green at the tips and yellower towards the cut end.  Not sure why this has happened as I have dyed lots of the fleece and this hasn't happened with other colours

Some stages of preparing fiber for spinning

The next lot of wool from Susie's lamb is underway.  I was lucky to get a fine day to dry some of it outside on my slate table.  The wool dries so much faster outside if I get the weather.   Next into the dying pan, yellow this time but I am only using a little mixed in with the blue.   This I do with my drum carder,  hard work and slow as I can only feed in a little fiber at a time and before it goes onto the carder it has to be dried again and then teased apart by hand or it will break the teeth on the carder.  Almost ready to spin,  most of the work done and now the real fun

Setting the spin

Just finished the first yarn from the wool from Susie's lamb.  This yarn is made from 3 separate dye lots which I blended on my drum carder  and added a little yellow, red and orange wool which were from dye lots that I did last year with the wool from Susie's 2010 lamb.  I also added a little Angelina which gives the yarn a little sparkle.  I have over 800grams of the color way and it is Aran/worsted to chunky weight.  I have listed some of it on my Etsy web site, www. etsy.com/shop/MarkreeWoolCraft  If you are interested in more please contact me on my e-mail, mary@markreewoolcraft.com.
 The yarn that is hanging is a process called 'setting the spin'  the last part of producing yarn. The wool is soaked in warm water, I add a little essential oil, and then hang it out to dry with weights attached.  This takes any kinks out of the yarn and is a bit like putting your hair in curlers and it makes the twist permanent

Susie's Lamb

This is Susie's lamb that was born in 2011. Susie is my only non Wensleydale sheep and I have had her  since she was a lamb.  She had a very heavy fleece which I have just started to prepare and spin.  The wool is beautiful, very long and soft and I am really enjoying working with it.  It will be interesting to find out how much wool she had after washing when most of the natural lanolin has been removed

Natural White Wensleydale Yarn

This is a sample of my pure Wensleydale yarn.  It is Aran/worsted weight and can be knitted, crocheted or hand dyed.

 

It can be bought on my website www.etsy.com/shop/MarkreeWoolCraft

Welcome to Markree Wool Craft.   I am a wool fanatic based in the North West of Ireland.  I own a small flock of Wensleydale sheep and hand dye and spin all their wool.

The sheep before shearing

Wensleydale wool dye and carded ready for spinning

Sheep with new born lambs