Coldspring Mill

Coldspring Mill is literally a fifteen minute drive away from us, but I'd never visited before yesterday - we tend to whiz past on the way to dogwalks at Hardcastle Crags. Anyway, a sudden fit of inspiration struck yesterday morning at work, so I stuffed Mark into the driving seat of the Disco almost as soon as he came home yesterday afternoon, the pupz in the back, and off we went.

Araucania yarn at half price. The two on the left are Naturewool, and to be socks with which I've bribed Mark. The undyed is the same, just undyed. On the right is a thicker weight one, in a yummy green.





These are intended for dyeing and resale. The big skeins are pure wool dk, and rather nice. The cone is lovely - wool, alpaca and camel in a thick dk. Nearly didn't see that.







There was lots of Debbie Bliss, balls, skeins and cones. I was tempted by two packets of aran tweed, one in a bright olive green (but there were bits of black and yellow in it) and the other in a soft sea green (see my Triton colourway somewhere below) but it had flecks of pink. Then I reminded myself that I really do prefer to knit in handspun.

There was lots of Debbi Bliss cashmerino stuff in various weights on cones at silly prices. But horrible colours - the yellow could have been overdyed, but I reminded myself that I used Cashmerino to knit IK's Cardigan for Arwen a few years ago and was sadly disappointed by (a) the appalling pilling and (b) the way it stretched sideways. So I put it back.


This grew nicely on the train yesterday and while watching telly last night. What was I saying about handspun? Much nicer texture than the previous yarn I used for this.







And look what better definition the leaves have.






I spent yesterday evening mostly rewinding skeins of handspun yarn, and re-labelling them all. Ended up with backache, but some very pretty yarn. Let's hope people buy it.