This colourway was designed for the third instalment of the Silk Roads rolag club. The Taklamakan Desert bisects the two main routes of the Silk Road, with traders having to follow the northern or southern route. At the edge of the desert were oasis trading towns, and still, to this day, the edge of the desert you will find an amazing forest of ancient poplars. These ancient and rare trees are now designated a World Heritage Site. 

The inspiration photograph was taken one December morning as I was getting ready to go for a walk. I loved the dusky blues with the hint of pink - in the dawn light.

These rolags are made from 21 micron merino, 18.5 micron merino in shades of grey and blue, with plenty white babby llama - and hints of dusky pink tussah silk.

All of the fibres, apart from the tussah silk will felt.

I was asked to put together a gradient moving from grey to black to red. This is what I came up with.

A gradient made from 33% tussah silk 66% superfine merino.

Wonderfully soft, but with a great drape and shimmer from the silk.

The transitions move from mid grey, to black to ruby to scarlett.

The merino in this blend will felt.

This cool wintery blend is made from soft, 21 micron merino blended with white bamboo. The percentages in the blend are 66% merino and 33% bamboo. Also in the photographed blend I have added a little silver Angelina - although you have the choice to include Angelina or not.

This blend is light and open, and is a lovely smooth spin, the final photograph shows the gradient being spun up on support spindles.

The merino in this blend will felt, although the bamboo will not.

This is the third colourway based on the 'Underwater Aliens' Theme

This is another of the 'Undersea Aliens' colourways.

This colourway is based on a squid which was nick named the ‘Gorgeous squid’ by the 2016 Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas by NOAA. This squid cannot be definitely identified, and was photographed in waters over 1000m deep, and it was still descending towards the sea bed in some of the deepest oceans in the world.

This is a merino blend, it is beautifully light and fluffy, as it has been carded 4 times to get the smooth gradient effect.

This gradient was produced for the Sampler Box Club. The theme for the box was 'Underwater Aliens'

This gradient is based on a photographs of a pelagic holothurian, or deep-sea swimming cucumber. This is an unusual sea cucumber, as most are a ‘cucumber’ shape living on the sea bed. This one looks more like a flower or jellyfish and was found free floating at 1400m depth during a mission in 2017 in the Pacific

The gradient is made of carefully blended merino and trilobal (to allow the fibres to shimmer) in shades of lavender and lilac.

I was asked to make a chocolate themed set of rolags - this is my attempt.

These rolags are made from three different shades based on dark chocolate, nugart and milk chocolate. Each shade is individually drum carded. Two shades are made from 1/3 recycled sari silk and 2/3 merino, the dark chocolate shade is a 1/3 tussah silk and 2/3 merino. These three shades are then placed on the blending board, and blended with caramel tussah silk and bronze Angelina.

These rolags will spin up into a soft, warm, slightly textured yarn.

The merino in this blend will felt.

This colourway was made up for the 'Silk Roads' rolag club. I chose this semi precious stone as an inspiration because Jade, from ancient times was extremely important to the Chinese, not only for its beauty, but because of what it represents. Confucius said that there are 11 De, or virtues, represented in jade: benevolence, justice, propriety, truth, credibility, music, loyalty, heaven, earth, morality, and intelligence.

These rolags are another colourway that was designed for the Solar System Sampler box. These rolags are based on an image of the Rings of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft. The colours used indicate the size of the particles within the rings, not the actual colour of the rings themselves.

The ‘Saturn’s Rings’ rolags are made of merino, superfine merino, cashmere with a little Italian tussah silk added.

The merino and cashmere fibres will felt. If you do not wish them to, hand wash in cool water.

Saturn rings image taken by NASA

This gradient was designed for the Sampler Box inspired by pictures of the Solar System. The gradient is based on the artists impression of the formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago. It is thought that our Solar System started off as an area of gas and dust called a nebula. Then, possibly due to a supernova in the area, gravity started pulling the nebula particles towards the centre. Eventually this formed a mass big enough to form the young Sun, with a spinning disc of debris swirling around it.

This slightly textured batt was inspired by the iconic photograph of an astronaut’s footprint on the moon and also some photographs of thin slices of moon rock observed through a microscope under polarized light. I have always considered lunar rock to be grey – whether due to their actual colour or because all of the photographs and footage I have seen is in black and white! So, I decided to combine the two ideas – grey rocks which hide flashes of colour.

I was asked which of my colourways would go well with Phoenix Arising rolags. After much thought, I decided to put together a blend which looks like a solid colour from as distance, but close up, there is a real depth of shades

When putting together this gradient, I wanted to put together a colourway based on a mythical figure associated with spinning. I eventually decided on the Queen of the Norse Gods, Frigg. She is said to have a magical garment of falcon feathers and a chariot pulled by rams and sheep. She is associated with clouds, mist and fog, which she is said to spin from her spindle (or wheel) into the threads of life which are woven by the Norns into the destiny of mankind.

This slightly larger than normal gradient batts set is based on a nebula found in the constellation of Orion. The Orion nebula is one of the brightest in the night sky and is approximately 1300 light years away from us. The nebula is an area of gas and dust where starts are being formed - they are sometime called stellar nurseries for that reason.

This set of 9 mini batts is made from 21 micron merino moving from vibrant greens through lime to gold and then moving through into cinnamon and reddy browns.

These rolags are based on the NASA photograph of the supernova Cassiopeia A. I put these rolags together as part of the first Sampler Box Club, where all of the colourways were based on images from Deep Space.

A supernova is a huge explosion caused when a star over 5 times bigger than our Sun runs out of fuel. The star then collapses. The collapse happens so quickly that it creates enormous shock waves that cause the outer part of the star to explode - leaving behind a nebula and possibly even a black hole. 

These rolags were designed as an addition to the Mohave Turquoise gradient batt set. They represent the bronze gold metallic matrix that holds the components of the mohave turquoise stone together.

These unusual rolags are made from 50% merino, 30% tussah silk, 20% recycled sari silk and a little bronze coloured trilobal.

This means that the blend will form a silghtly textured, but still shimmery and soft yarn.

This mineral inspired colourway is based on a ‘composite gemstone’ called Mohave Turquoise.

Mojave Turquoise is made using natural turquoise nuggets. The natural chunks of turquoise are combined together (with a bronze matrix) The purple variety has been dyed before the combination. These dyed and natural pieces are then compressed using a hydraulic press – the so called, block stone can then be cut and polished.

I was asked to make some Mother of Pearl based fibre. These rolags are made from 5 colours of merino all blended with 1/3 seacell, to give the blend an even shimmer, handle and drape. The 5 different coloured batts were then torn up and made into rolags on the blending board. At this point I added some blazes of A grade mulberry silk, for extra shine and drape.

When spun the colours in the rolags will blend and mix together gently to form a lustrous yarn with random gentle colour transitions.

This colourway was initially made for the 2019-2020 Gradient Club members. The challenge was to produce a gradient using the inspiration of 'Vegetable'. I used an inspiration photograph of an ornamental cabbage where the colours gently transition from burgundy through dusky pink to creams and soft green.

Ths 150g set of 10 mini batts is made from 21 micron, soft merino. Each batt has been carefully blended three times to ensure even colour mixing.

The merino fibres wil felt. If you do not wish them to, hand wash in cool water.

My challenge was to produce some rolags on the theme of WATER. Now that I found difficult, because what colour is water? My first answer, the colour of the thing that it reflects - the sky or the sunset. My next thought was that water is not just the liquid.... snow, ice, clouds, mist, all of these natural phenomena are water. So, I searched for inspiration photographs with clouds, ice and water in them.

The inspiration photograph shows a floating iceberg next to misty mountains - all three states of matter.

The Portuguese Man of War is a strange creature, that is actually a colony of individuals called polyps. The Man 'O War has a gas filled bladder, that allows it to be transported around the oceans by currents and winds.
The tentacles beneath the bladder are between 10-30m long, trailing along in the water. These tentacles are designed to paralyse small fish and other prey. Sadly, they are also responsible for tens of thousands of stings on humans in Australian waters alone each year.

In November last year, I met a lovely lady, Anne Arnold, at the Dumfries and Galloway Spinners, Weavers and Dyers Guild Gathering. I loved this picture and asked Anne if I could use this as an inspiration picture for some rolags. She graciously told me that I could.

I call this colourway Wild and Woolly, because the day I got this needle felted picture was so wet, wild and woolly! In fact when driving back to Cumbria, at one point I had to pull over because I could not see the road, the rain was so heavy.