Tag Archives: Meduseld yarn

Meduseld Lace-weight Yarn Back-in-Stock!

Meduseld’s lace-weight yarn is back in stock in our store!

This is the beautiful, high-sheen yarn that has been shown in projects on these pages and on Ravelry. This yarn is ideal for making lace shawls and scarves. It makes stunning knitted Estonian lace work, and yields a lace fabric with shine and drape.

It is also delightful made into crochet lace. Here it has been used in a pineapple pattern to create a shawl that is diaphanous and catches every breeze, despite being bordered with glass beads. This yarn would be ideal for making bridal shawls.

Lace Shawl

Romney yarn holds dye beautifully. These two-ply skeins are 250 yards and are $13.00 each. Each skein weighs approximately 2.9 ozFor bulk purchases, please contact Meduseld directly.

Free Knitted Shawl Pattern

We have a free knitted shawl pattern, courtesy of my friend Kate!

Kate created this shawl from the Meduseld Romney yarn that we dyed together for the dyeing wool with food coloring article a few weeks ago. In these pictures, you’ll recognize the green and teal yarn that she dyed and subsequently swatched.

Kate’s Boomerang Shawl

Here is a close-up of the border:

Close-up of Border

And this picture shows its boomerang shape and the subtle pattern in the dyed yarn as it moves across the shawl.

Kate’s Boomerang Shawl

Here is Kate with the pattern:

Easy Boomerang shawl

This is an easy garter stitch shawl, knit sideways from one point to the long edge opposite. It can be very simple with no border, or fancy with a sideways knitted lace edge of your choice. If you continue the edging around the other side, you will only have to bind off a few stitches at the end. I’ve done two different versions, one with the Doris edging, the other with the Wave Lace edging, which I modified slightly to come to a point at the end. Both are from Heirloom Knitting by Shannon Miller.

Cast on three stitches (I used the long tail cast on), plus the number needed for the border. (For the Doris edging I cast on nine more stitches; for the Wave edging, eight.)

Knit across.

First row: k2, m1, k1, pm. Knit the first row of your chosen edging.

Second row: Knit the second row of the edging. Sm, k2tog, m1, k2.

Third row: k2, m1, k to marker. Sm, knit next edging row.

Fourth row: knit next edging row. Sm, k2tog, k to last two stitches, m1, k2.

Repeat the third and fourth row until your shawl is the size you like, or until you are running out of yarn. You can just keep going until you have just enough to bind off, or leave enough to continue the border around the other side.

I ended the shawl when I came to an inward point in the edging. I then knit one more row on the edging from the edge to the body of the shawl, and turned, knitting back down to the edge. I then continued the edging, knitting the last stitch of the edging together with the next stitch of the body, to finish off all the live stitches on the body. I then had to bind off only nine stitches at the end.

Kate

Two New Dyed Yarns

We have added two new dyed yarn pairs in our store! Both are Meduseld’s Dorset Down/Friesian blend in worsted weight. Each pair weighs 6.7 oz. and has approximately 340 yards.

The first color pair is called Caribbean Reef.

Caribbean Reef

The second is called Brazil, named after one of the most beautiful countries on the planet. It has vibrant shades including the gold and green from their national flag.

Brazil

Yarn Give-Away! Reminder

If you have not already, remember to go over to Meduseld’s group on ravelry.com and enter the Group discussion thread for the free yarn give-away. Two yarns will be given away – Meduseld’s Dorset Down Friesian blend, and the other is Lanna Gato alpaca in natural grey. All you have to do to enter is to post in the thread what you would do with the yarn. The winners will be selected at random on May 15.

Crocheted Pineapple Shawl

Lace Shawl

Generously sized Lace Pineapple Shawl made from Meduseld’s romney yarn in the fingering/lace weight. This shawl has approximately 600 yards of yarn. It was inspired by a pattern in a Japanese crochet book, but the border is entirely changed to emphasize the pineapples on the edge, and each ends with a small cluster of glass beads.

Close-up of “pineapples”

The shawl is available in our store.

New Yarn and Prize Give-away! Read Below!

Meduseld is delighted to release a new yarn. This is a two-ply worsted weight yarn of our Friesian and Dorset Down sheep.

We have profiled both of these breeds in a past blog article. The Dorset Downs, in particular, are known and bred for their very soft wool – wool soft enough to be used in apparel against the skin. These skeins won’t disappoint, as they have all the characteristic softness of these breeds. This yarn is springy, and feels like it had cotton blended with it.

We have a limited supply of these skeins. We are selling these 3.2-3.3 oz skeins very affordably for only $13.50 each. The color is natural white, and they would be excellent for dying.

We will be holding a give-away of one approximately 3 oz. skein on May 15, 2013 through our Ravelry group, Meduseld. Post on the forum’s give-away thread that you would like to enter the give-away, and let us know what you’d like to do with the yarn if you win it. Second runner-up will receive a 1 3/4 oz skein of Lana Gatto’s Alpaca in a dark natural grey. We will pick both winners at random on May 15.

Make sure to join the Give-Away!

Shearing Day 2013

Happy Easter!

Thursday we had our sheep shorn, an annual event. Our front porch is covered with labeled bags of wool, each containing the name of the sheep that provided it. This year, we were able to have Rachel Summers of the Crowfoot Farm come out and shear and I have never been as happy before with the professionalism of the shearer!

Romney Fleece

Rachel and her husband, Kevin, run Crowfoot Farm, and I encourage you to go to the link. They raise quality GMO-free broiler chickens and free-range heritage turkeys. We had the privilege of being able to visit their farm and we were totally impressed with the way that they raise the animals. They raise several breeds of endangered heritage breeds and their blog is filled with information on their farm. The turkeys truly were free-range, and the chickens are in moveable pens so that they are in fresh forage areas. In addition, Rachel and Kevin go to great lengths to make certain that the feed is GMO-free. If you are in the area, its worth a trip in order to stock up your freezer.

Rachel learned her shearing skills from a great shearer, and since she is also a spinner, she understands the importance of ending up with a nice fleece. She left us with no second cuttings. Second cuttings come from where the shearer passes over the same area twice, and this leaves short pieces of wool that cannot be spun and that tend to leave little nubs or bumps if inadvertently spun into the yarn. The second cuttings have to be meticulously removed from the fleece, but in this case there are virtually none.

As a true professional, she cut the fleeces away from each sheep and it fell away in one large fleece. This makes for easy “skirting,” a process where we lay the fleece out and remove sections of the wool that are dirty, or that do not yield nice yarn, such as the legs and neck. By the time a fleece is skirted, only the best parts of it are ready for processing, whether it be for roving, yarn, batts, etc. The portions that are removed can be used for mulching garden beds or just thrown away. I have read that these pieces used to be used for insulation, but I seriously doubt that would pass building code these days.

Jacob Sheep

As each fleece peels away from the sheep I judge it for the type of yarn that it will make. Factors that influence this decision include crimp, fiber length, sheen, and fineness. I have sheep whose fleeces I always designate for the same type of yarn, especially if I have found good results in the past. Royal, for example, is the source of those shiny skeins of Romney fingerling, and Clarabelle is the source of the buttery soft wool that I blend with Alpaca to make the brown bulky yarn that I can’t keep in stock.

Clarabelle and her Fleece

In the last twenty-four hours we have had more baby lambs, including from our largest ewe, Henrietta. Here is a picture of one of our dorset down ewes with twins she had. This photo was taken just after she had them and they have still not been completely cleaned off by their mother.

Dorset Down Ewe and Lambs

I have also finished another shawl for our store, this time made out of Meduseld’s Romney Fingerling weight yarn. It is a reversible shawl with a beaded crocheted fringe. You can find it in our store here.

Romney Yarn Shawl

Meduseld Romney – Two New Yarns

We are excited to add two new sport weight yarns to our store, both made of 100 percent Romney wool. They are both subtle blends of dyed wools and we are calling their colors Monet Winter Sunset and Monet Reflection.

Romney Yarn

Monet Winter Sunset is a blend of reds with hints of leaf green and gold subtley intertwined in the Romney wool sheen. Monet Reflection appears purple or lilac at first to the eye, but actually contains no purple fibers. It is a blend of reds and blues creating a tweeding effect that changes colors in different light, almost like a color-change sapphire. You can see these blends in the photos.

I have made some swatches of each. Sunset was knit with #3 (U.S.) knitting needles. Reflection was crocheted with an “F” crochet hook.

Both compliment each other well. Inspired by a sweater I have always liked in Rowan Magazine Number 50, I started knitting the two together in the rose pattern.

This is is as far as I have gotten, and the colors compliment each other nicely.

Each sport weight skein weighs just over 3.2 oz and is 200 yards long. They can be purchased for $15.00 each in Meduseld’s store.

Meduseld Romney Yarn

Meduseld Worsted Romney Yarn on FibreTown

The most recent FibreTown podcast showed two of Meduseld’s yarns. Emily Estrada, with FibreTown, will be offering a choice of either to the winner of a drawing she will have when she reaches 100 members on her Ravelry group. As of today her group called fiber town podcast has 91 members, so it won’t be long. Make sure you go and join up. It is a fun, active group where people share their FO’s (finished objects) and their WIP’s (works in progress) Emily has many skills that she shares and its a good way to learn about some of the yarns and rovings that are available.

One of the yarns Emily showed was Meduseld’s Worsted Romney yarn in 200 yard skeins. Here I have made some swatches that show how it knits and crochets. But first, a picture of its luxurious drape.

The first swatch was knit on U.S. size 7 knitting needles which would be 4.5 mm. This worsted yarn has approximately 12 wraps and the suggested needle size is between 7 and 9 – U.S. As you can see in the picture, it has remarkable sheen. This swatch has some stretch and has a lovely handle.

The next swatch was crocheted on a size G (4mm) hook, and created a nice tight fabric. The stitches are all double crochet. You could certainly use a larger hook, and projects made with this should work up quickly.

We will be listing this yarn on Ravelry.com for the members who want to be able to identify it with their projects. It is available to buy in our store here.

FibreTown Follows up on Jacob Roving

Emily Estrada of FibreTown, follows up on her January 30, 2013 about Meduseld’s Jacob roving. She demonstrates the yarn and the wool hat that she has made out of the roving. You see it in this podcast:

FibreTown Podcast February 13, 2013

Emily discusses an upcoming prize give-away she will have when she reaches 100 members. The prize will be Meduseld yarn. Sincere thanks to Emily for telling everyone about our farm!

You can visit Emily’s blog at: http://fibretown.blogspot.com/, and you can find her on ravelry as chainoffools.

Here’s her St. Valentine’s Day greeting…

Chainoffools St. Valentine’s Day Greeting

We have added some more Romney roving to the store, as well as some 100 percent Romney in worsted weight. These are soft, shiny, 200 yard skeins that weigh 3.5 oz (approx 100g) each, and are priced at only $15.00 per skein. If you want to buy more than three skeins, please email and I will take off $1.50 per skein. Click on the Meduseld Farm Store link to the right.

Romney yarn – 200 yard skeins

A few weeks ago, I showed everyone how to dye wool using Cushing Perfection Dyes. One of the colors I used was a brilliant canary yellow, although they had it called “chartreuse.” I had visions in my head of carding it with an aquamarine that I had done last year, and I thought that triple plying those would create a beautiful, springlike effect. Well, no more….

My yarn! Ahhhh!

Yes! My dog, Beowulf, had other ideas. He took the bag of fleece off the front porch and dragged it out into the yard to play with! Bad doggy!

Happy St. Valentine’s Day to everyone!

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Jan
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Meduseld – Offering Fine Yarn, Wool, Textiles and Artisanal Goods

Meduseld is dedicated to permaculture and sustainable farming methods.