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.

Open for Business

Here's my fave of last weekend's dye lots:



And while this isn't the most attention-getting colourway ever, it was a neat colour chemistry experiment - this yarn is dyed with black dye.



Only black. Two different blacks.

If you're interested, or just want to see more, check out the links over there on the right ---> . The Etsy store is now open, and the gallery is updated.

Coming soon: Result of dye workshops at Wellington (May 10) and Shelridge (May 25) - if I can bear to part with them!

Out of the Dye Pot, May

Welcome! Pictures are still to come, but May has gotten started with another day of smelling up the loft with the aroma of pickled sheep - all for the greater good of Socks.