handspun – Colourful Designs by Bex Hopkins

Clearing bobbins

26 September 2016 by Bex

I’m working on a new design at the moment, so I don’t have a lot of knitting to share. So that’s a little tease and here are some finished yarns from clearing off my bobbins ready for Spinzilla.

1177m of 2plied super fine Shetland. I haven’t washed it yet but I expect it to be heavy lace weight/light fingering weight. Love the colour of this.

200g of Merino / Silk blend top became 800m of fingering weight yarn. I love 3plied yarn, so I spun roughly 66g onto each of 3bobbins and made this great 3ply. I N-plied the remnants.

I had some tiny sample bits on a few bobbins so I plied those off to go in my box of oddments. All N-plied, some dyed mulberry silk, undyed mulberry silk and cotton.

The result…

… a big pile of bobbins! I have some many Schacht bobbins as each wheel comes with 3 or 4 bobbins and I have 3 Schacht wheels that take these bobbins. The huge bobbins are the Hansen Woolee Winder bobbins. My Schacht-Reeves bobbins were already clear and aren’t in the photo. I managed to clear all the bobbins on Friday thinking it was the end of October and Spinzilla started today! I have no idea where that week went in my brain, but I’m glad to have that week back! Spinzilla starts a week today.

Building a Tri-Loom

5 June 20105 June 2010 by Bex

I decided to build a Tri-Loom, after seeing Thiftwizard’s Tri-loom when I visited her house for a spin-In.
I haven’t found any where in the UK that sells them, and to be honest its no great feat of engineering to make one.

I went to B&Q to look for suitable wood, they don’t sell Hard woods, but did have some fairly hard smooth planed wood. I bought a pack of 4, 2.1m x 44mm x 34mm.
The resulting loom is 2m on the inside edge of the long side. Which should make a nice sized shawl for someone my height.
For those who have no idea what I am going on about, have a look at some building instructions here. I also took some inspiration from this blog.

I chose to set my nails on the hypotenuse (longest side) at 1cm (3/8inch), giving me 2oo on each side. I figured that 1/2inch that everywhere seems to recommend would give me too loose a weave for the yarns I am likely to use.

Handspun Swallowtail Shawl

18 July 200917 July 2009 by Bex

From 200grams of Organic Merino ‘Tea and Roses’ Club fibre to 600m of handspun yarn to 4ft6 Swallowtail shawl.

2ply yarn, spun worsted on my Ladybug, final yarn between 4ply and sport weight.

I only got my first wheel in January this year, and I managed to spin, ply, knit and block this shawl in just 13days, as part of my Tour de Fleece spinning challenge.

Pictures 🙂