Batts in the Shop!

So, it's been a bit of a breather this weekend - not quite sure what to do with myself, it's been a while since I had a real "downtime", and two days in a row, even!

I celebrated but updating the Etsy shop (look right) with my latest creations you saw previewed here last post.  Half a dozen batts are up, some more have been sent out to local spinners for testing, and there's more to do with the carder.  I'll be mocking up a banner for next month's Ravelry listing shortly.

Here's a couple more creations.  This is another batt now up in the shop:

Purple-Black Batt

It's a little hard to see the colour subtlety there - it's a batt of black Merino and purple-dyed Romney locks, lovely and subtle. I have more of this black merino, so look for some more dark & jeweled blends.

Here's a little tease, and this one's NOT going to make it into the shop:

Icy Polwarth

Close Up - looks like marble

That was a one-of-a-kind, took every scrap of some long-staple Polwarth leftovers, to which was added little drips-and-drabs of seacell in various pale, cool colours, and then the tiniest dusting of Angelina for sparkle.  It's not going up in the shop 'cuz it promptly went here:

Into the drink?

It's busy with my Purpleheart Bosworth Midi - I'm working it into a worsted-weight single for some fluffy, warm, winter yarn.  The Scotch container (and similar wine/liquor bottle gift tubes) turned out to be a perfect spindle project case - I'm probably going to knit some bag handles for them, if I ever get through my current heap of projects.

Lofty's Going Batty

Popping in here for another "It's about time!" post.  This one - it's about time for BATTS!

A year ago I invested in a very nice Pat Greene drum carder.  The small model - Deb's Delicate Deluxe, hand-turned.  It arrived, and I had a plan to use it at May workshop on carding/blending which got cancelled due to low enrollment - and there it has sat, for a year and more.

This weekend, I had a few friends over, put out some snacks, and organized a kick in the butt for myself.  The drum carder, which I have now named DeeDee, was duly christened.  Here's the first production run!

Batt(s) 1:  Superwash merino mill ends, handpainted in a mesh bag and now carded into this lovely, streaky, "Beachy" watercolour-way:

Those are in fact the same dye lot - the color layering pulled out differently.  A spinner could be quite adventurous in how they work up, mix'n'match, or keep separate and coordinate.

Batt(s) The Second:  A blend of the SW merino mill ends and some lovely soft Romeny lamb locks.  I have dyed bagfuls of each, and when it came to blending picked adjacent colours (blue-green/green, yellow-green/green,violet/magenta-red) to make more monochrome but beautifully rich, heathered batts.

Batt(s) the Third:  Using the same adjacent-colour blending, these last two are 100% Romney lamb.  The dyes were bright jewel-tones, but on gray fleece.  Made some lovely toned colours.

I have to show you a close-up of the last one: 

I like that one enough that it might not make it into the Etsy shop.

More fluffy adventures are to come!  There may need to be more dyeing, but I've begun rootling the fluff stash too for some little add-in goodies like seacell/silk fibres, angelina (sparkles!), and some lovely blending bits of mohair, alpaca, and llama.