Escaping Suburbia

Over the weekend, I experimented with some Easter egg dyes on two types of wool. First and third below are BFL and the second one is merino. Two egg dye kits (less than $4 total) were enough for four rovings of 4oz. each, using 3 tablets for each roving. I probably could have stretched the colors even further and gotten more out of them… more experimenting required!

My favorite of the three, I’m calling this one “Verdigris”. The colors came from the PAAS Camo kit, which I picked up for the slightly darker, muted colors.

“Crimson Clover”, using the rest of the dyes from the Camo kit and supplemented with some icing dyes. For this one, and the one above, I layered the whole roving in a crock pot set on low and poured the mixed colors over various parts of the fiber.

“Clopin”, dyed with three colors from the Paas Neon kit. The blue in the egg dye kit breaks just like the Delphinium color of Wiltons. Also, the teal color bleeds like crazy. I still haven’t got it to stop, but I figure after I spin the yarn, I’ll soak it some more. This one was done by dissolving the dyes in three medium size mason jars and placing parts of the length of roving in each jar. The three jars were then warmed in the crock pot until the dye was exhausted.

So, all in all, egg dye kits are a fine way to dye roving. I’ll be looking for kits to go on sale after Easter.

Corespun yarn is made by taking a strand of  thread or yarn — in my case I used cotton crochet thread — and wrapping fiber around it. There are some really amazingly beautiful results out there if you look through Flickr, and I was inspired by some fiber I received as a Christmas present from Mama & Papa Wolf in these gorgeous blues, greens and purples.

When it first came off the bobbin, I didn’t much like it, but after looking at the photo, I think I do. The colors are kind of selling it for me. It’s so different from what I usually try to spin and I only did a very small amount. I’ll have to try to work it into a project somehow… maybe stripes in a hat made with another similar weight yarn.

Hot damn, it’s been a long time since I updated. I’ve gone through a few job related changes recently and have just been too distracted to think much about the blogs. Hoping to change that, though.

Also, my little 365 project is so not happening. It was feeling too chore-like, not fun, so I stopped. I do have a few shots to share over the next few days though.

For now, here’s a project I worked up very quickly this weekend. This is some shetland & angora fiber from Malia Shetlands in Monroe:

Here it is on the bobbin — 2 plies, somewhat bulky. I didn’t bother measuring it because I knew I was going to just turn it into a hat right away, regardless:

And here’s the finished hat — just a basic single crochet in a spiral with a bit of decreasing around the ears to make it snug:

I love this color — I’m hoping to find more of this fiber, because I’d like to make a thinner, smoother yarn with it as well.

Well, that’s it for now… be back before another month has passed. I hope. I mean, yeah, I will. You bet.

Day 9
December 9, 2009

For today’s photo I have this hat I crocheted over the last two days. (Yesterday’s shot was the yarn on the winder.) I spun the yarn from a lovely braid of Blue Faced Leicester fiber from  Easy Knits.

The hat is just okay, should have done a different stitch.

I’ve been neglecting the spinning for a while in favor of a couple of crocheted afghans. Two afghans at a time? What was I thinking?

The first pattern I started is the Hobo Blanket, using 17 different colors of Knitpicks Palette yarn. Here’s where I was with that one a little over a month ago:

Further along now. It’s a pretty mindless pattern, easy to work on while riding in the car or watching TV. There are lots of color changes, though, because I’ve only been doing one or two rows of each color. I think I’m going to try to slip in a couple of wider stripes from here on out.

I’d gotten those yarns to start the Babette Blanket, but got a few squares into it and got distracted & gave up. But then again, I really wanted to make a Babette, so I got more yarn and am going to try again. So there! Take that, short attention span!

These are my colors this time around:

I love them all, but I’m hoping the combination of these colors into the squares doesn’t end up looking like a 1970’s kitchen. I have a few squares done so far — need to take some photos soon.

Now that I’ve started these two big projects, I will probably go back to spinning and do nothing but that for a month or two. Or maybe I’ll take up a new hobby altogether, like soap making. I learned how to make goat’s milk soap yesterday…

At LAST! I finally have a couple of things to add to the Etsy shop. This is hand-dyed fingering weight sock yarn. Clicking on the photos will take you to the listings:

I found this undyed sock yarn at the Sock Summit (yes, really) up in Portland this weekend. If these do well, I may add this line to my shop in addition to the hand-spun.

Currently spinning Dicentra Designs’ Merino/Tussah Silk in “Bouquet”:

First bobbin done, one more to go.

Some recently finished skeins… finally got a chance to take some photos this morning.

Just finished this one yesterday. BFL, chain-plied, about 248 yards:

50/50 Superwash Merino & Tencel from Squoosh. Beautiful but super slippery, making consistency difficult for me. I think I prefer a smaller percentage of tencel in my rovings:

Corriedale from Dicentra Designs. Not my most perfect yarn, but the colors make me giddy, so I don’t care!

Anyone want some yarn?

Well, the tour is over and I made some great progress. Got out of my spinning slump and taught myself to use a drop-spindle besides. Here are the results of the final week… I didn’t keep great notes on the dates, but I’ll estimate.

Days 17-19 (July 20-22)

Monday was a rest day, but I kept practicing with the drop -spindle:

Days 20-21 (July 23-24)

Decided to go back to the wheel & ply the fiber from Sporfarm. I thought about plying with beads, and even started stringing some, but in the end I didn’t want to bother:

Lousy photo. I know.

Day 22  (July 25)

Started spinning this BFL from Easy Knits. It was gorgeous & so easy to spin. These are probably my best singles ever, mostly even & quite thin:

Day 23 (July 26)

Final day! I wanted to finish the entire roving from Easy Knits and ply it. This is the completed second bobbin:

Unfortunately, I was hating the way it plied together. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I’d done one bobbin without tearing the roving into strips, so the color repeats were extremely long. The second bobbin I tore into strips and had shorter repeats. With these colors, it just wasn’t working out at all. So, I scrapped that idea and decided to practice my chain-plying (aka Navajo-plying):

OMGWTF, why is this technique so difficult for me?! I finally, FINALLY ended up with this tiny little amount of chain-plied yarn with which I am somewhat happy. I like the way the colors  came together, at least. It’s way over-twisted and broke in a couple of places. What a pain.

So, of course, I am now spinning up another bobbin of BFL and I’m going to Try. It. Again.

And there you have it — the tour is over. No prizes won by me, but I spun every single day and I (sorta) learned new things (which need lots of practice). Need more wool…

P.S. This is way better than last year when I joined the rookie team and started to spin this:

… and then never went back to the group after day 2. Heh.

Hellooooo! Wow, going back to work last week really put a crimp in my spinning time. The noive! Well, I guess the job helps pay for more fiber to spin, so… yay, job!

So, yeah, I didn’t finish much this week, but it was still a good week and I spun every single day!

Day 10 (July 13)

Technically a day of rest, I still spun a little. I finished plying the Wensleydale that I posted last time (the purple at the end of the last post). It’s all right. Very, very purple. No photo of the finished skein yet.

Day 11 (July 14)

I taught myself how to use a drop spindle! Looking at photos of what others can do with drop spindles really inspired me to try it again. Before I learned on a wheel, I tried using a cheapie bottom-whorl spindle and I hated it. Just never got the hang of it. This time, I got a well-made top-whorl spindle and caught on right away. I certainly have a lot of practice ahead of me before I make nice yarn, but still…! The fiber in this photo is Corriedale from Dicentra Designs.

Day 12-16 (July 15-19)

I kept working on the teal fiber from Sporfarm — a little bit all week — and just finished the second bobbin on Sunday (day 16). It’s pretty, but it’s just not keeping my attention. I thought I might try to ply it with some beads on a thread, but I don’t know…

Here’s the same photo from last week.

Day 15-16 (July 18-19)

More on the drop spindle! I started to feel that I was muddying up the colors in the corriedale, so I wound that off and pulled out some merino/alpaca/shetland blend from Lavender Sheep. Please ignore my very messy winding technique… it’s about all I can do to just keep a twist going and not break the yarn and, and, and! Neater winding will have to come later.

So, there’s the end of week 2! There’s a suggestion that we challenge ourselves on Wednesday as that’s the day of the  Tour de France’s densest mountain stage with 5 mountain passes. Hmmmm, maybe by then I can try to ply on this drop spindle. That should be challenging enough!