Off to Spinning School

Lofty Fibres is off to a working vacation, in lovely Haliburton, Ontario. Yours truly will be taking Level 1 of the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners' Guild's Spinning Certificate.

I have no idea what I'm in for. Fellow Ravellers who are going have next to no experience, and years of experience.

Here's my latest, half-done project. I'm taking these along for some plyng practice.

A little gift for my hardworking wheel

Was playing around at being crafty the last couple of days. My JourneyWheel, Lapis Monique, is the beneficiary of a crafty little brainfart, so she can now accessorize with whatever she is spinning.

Back At It.

This roving makes me think of Cirque du Soleil's big tent.


The Lofty blog is not abandoned, but the blogger has been busy with life. Not much is moving on the Etsy store front so there's been no urgency about dyeing. Meanwhile, I did get Monique (the Journeywheel) out from where she'd been hiding from the painters for a couple of weeks, and we've made a start on Kit 2A of the Bellwether's Fab Fibre Clu

Made a small start on it, about 1/4 or a bit more.

Spinning Makes a Bad Week Better

This past week included a birthday, but sadly, the loss of a much loved, if insane and very sick, kitty from our little crew at the Loft.

Spinning is soothing, though. LoftyFibres may eventually list some handspuns for sale, but these are still some learning projects.

First - the SW Merino from The Black Lamb that I started, oh, weeks ago, not too long after getting the JourneyWheel. I was going for sock-ish weight, but got waaaayyyy too thin. I'm going to Navajo ply this, and it *might* be lace weight then.




After 6 weeks on that one very full bobbin, my first two installments (first project) from The Bellwether's Fiber Club went zoomin' by. I think these are a bit thinner than called for, as I had a heck of alot of trouble not over-drafting after all that merino thread I made. They're also uneven, but I'll see it through and knit the socks eventually.



I don't know what it is with purple lately. It's not something I'd have said is my fave, but it's been stalking me. I finished scarf with alot of purple, the fibre kit was purple, my Ravelry Sockdown for may had some purple, and for June is primarily purple. Then the STR May kit showed up - very purple... AND on a whim, I picked up two skeins of complimentary purple colourways for the Goddess Mystery Shawl.

First Sale!

My thanks to fellow Raveller Jerry, who spotted one of my yarns, wandered to the Etsy shop and bought it! Something of a rite of passage for me to make a sale online - so far, they've just been hand-offs at Guild meetings.

So, yay! Pelagic, or half of it, as it was a half-pound dye lot, is off to a new home in California. How neat, because the experience that inspired this colourway was actually my all-too-brief visit to the Monterey Aquarium last year. I was just entranced by the "Pelagic Zone" tank with the sharks and mola-mola. The deep, darkening cast of blue-green on everything gives that exhibit the most tranquil aura.



I am debating as yet whether to list the skein's mate on Etsy. I do quite love it - but realistically, if I want to make a go of being a marketable dyer, keeping even half of what I dye is not the best plan.

Fibre Fun

Below, for your review, is roughly 2 pounds of superwash merino/nylon mill ends, dyed in various accidents and experiments over the course of this month.

From the Wellington workshop, May 10:

Garnet - dyed in a kettle in an onion bag!


Faded Jeans - ditto.



Switcharoo Blues - what happened when a classmate and I confused our fibres (so, this one wasn't really my dye job).



May 11th, I mucked about in the kitchen with some leftover Wilton's solutions:

Amethyst and Rose happened when a mix of Violet and Cornflower (I think) blue broke up.


Mossy Agate was a couple of different green solutions.



I finally broke out my Jacquard dyes, or at least half of them, and mixed stock on May 18.

Every Greens 1 is a handpaint, in a green-tinged black, teal-green, emerald, and chartreuse.



Every Greens 2 is a kettle job that occurred when the remains of all the greens in Every Greens 1 were mixed in a single pot:



Finally, I was so happy with one of my handpaint yarns from the Shelridge Farm workshop on the 25th, that I ran home to play in a pot again with the last yoink of the fibre I had left. The result was Sleet:



I'll show you Sleet the Yarn and its inspiration later. All these fibres are destined, eventually, for carding, blending, and spinning practice, possibly along with some mohair locks I have.

Been Too Busy to Blog

A few new things have been cooked up in the last week-or-so. May 10 was spent out at Wellington Fibres,, getting a look at how proprietor and professional dyer Donna gets things done. While one can get the basics of dyeing out of books, Donna's scientific approach was incredibly informative, and you can't beat learning from the benefit of another's experience.




I'm not sure if I can let the blue one into the shop, but the mixed-berries colour will be (there are two).

I also learned some common sense about dyeing fibre - namely, onion bags. Keeps it from floating all apart. This roving was handpainted, but rinsed in the bag. Since I never eat enough onions to buy a whole bag, I discovered dollar-store zippered lingerie wash bags do the same job.



No, I didn't mangle a roving, by the way. Some of what I took to experiment on was some $5/lb superwash/nylon blend mill ends, which will eventually be for my carding, blending, and spinning experiments.

Yesterday and today were spent replicating the work in the kitchen. Today's results are still drying, but yesterday's were alright. One of two fibre one-offs obtained by dumping the unused Wilton's mixes from a couple weeks ago into a pot:



and this, done with the potentially messy technique of sprinkling dye powder onto wet yarn:



I could only do that with Gaywool, really, which is constituted more like salt crystals as the acid is in the mix. Do NOT try any such thing with Jacquard unless you have lab-grade containement for that flyaway powder.

We'll leave the spinning for another day, but I had to show this off, too. My dye studio.


Yep, after a few go-rounds of making a mess, shoving all the clutter into a corner of my room, then making more mess, I dug this tower of rolling file boxes out of storage. Everything but my big roasting pan fits in. 2 canning pots, 24 mason jars, 12 turkey basters, assorted spoons and syringes. The reason the lid is a bit elevated is inside the top bin is another bin I've made into an ersatz "glove box" in which dye powder can be mixed up (while I still wear gloves and a mask) with very minimal risk of mess or transfer or inhalation. I love that I can now put the whole kit back in storage, and roll it out when I need to.