It's a good day to dye...

Oooh it has been a while since I put anything up here on my blog!  So sorry about that!

With the biting cold of this Wisconsin winter, I've been doing some dye work this month.  It is such fun to work with dye on colored wools, so I shot some pictures of the latest batch of experiments.

I soaked 100 grams of wool from various fleeces in my stash and put them in the dye pot to try out the effect of overdyeing the darker natural colored wools.



The mini trampoline drying rack - because I'm fancy like that.

Here's the whole bunch on my drying rack... a mini trampoline that has lost a few too many springs and attachments due to age, but it makes a dandy drying rack when I put it up on sawhorses!

Clockwise from the top:
1. Corriedale, natural gray "Sierra" in Amethyst.
2. Cormo, white "Poppy" in Amethyst and then as a cleanup for Peacock Blue.
3. Corriedale, natural gray "Sierra" in Peacock Blue.
4. English Leicester Longwool steel gray "Theo" clean up batch in Peacock Blue.
5. English Leicester Longwool steel gray "Theo" in Peacock Blue.

Wool is a protein fiber, so I use acid dyes to color the wool fibers.  Typically, vinegar is used for the acidification of the dye bath, but since I plan to sell these colors, I used citric acid instead since it has no odor and uses a much smaller quantity.  I learned this when I started dying with the Nasty Romney fleece that started this journey.

Speaking of the Nasty Romney, I have had good news that I can finally share!  I had submitted a proposal of the story of that fleece to Spin-Off Magazine quite a while ago, and I was selected for the Spring 2014 issue featuring color.  I'm on page 70 of the magazine, with my article titled "Making Lemonade".  Here is a link to the magazine: Spin-Off Spring 2014


I'll be putting some batts from both this dye batch and the Nasty Romney (now somewhat affectionately named Anastasia for obvious reasons) into my Etsy shop for your perusal and purchase.

Currently also hard at work on another delightful series of batts called the "Magic" series.  All of these batts are full of sparkle and an interesting blend of fibers.

Here's a taste of the series for your pleasure.
 


Wings of Pegasus

Here is the link to the listing in the shop for this batt called Wings of Pegasus.

Gone Loopy...

Spinning is one of my favorite things to do.  Takes me to a wonderful, peaceful place with very few distractions. Of course, it also helps that I'm doing it in the middle of the night!  Even so, there is something creative and tranquil about the feel of prepared fiber slipping through my fingers on the way to the spindle or wheel.  Currently I'm working on a bump of fiber from a online shop called Loop.  This is the photo from the advertisement:

It is called "Goddess" and it is made up of Merino wool, bamboo and tussah silk.  It is spinning up well, although not especially quickly since it wants to be pretty fine singles.  Most people chain ply these bumps, and for a while I was thinking of doing the same thing.  I'm into the bright green part right now and I'm not crazy about the contrast with the other colors, so I'm considering removing the bright green and spinning it into a separate yarn.

Here's a shot of the bump after I started spinning the olive green section at the center of the bump. 

One of the interesting things about these bumps is that the fiber pulls from the center.  Most of the fiber I work with isn't put up this way, so it has been a new experience for me to spin from this kind of preparation.  One thing that is going to be nice is that I'll have a bit of time to decide how to handle that bright green, and it will already be in the spun singles form.  The blue is also quite bright, but it doesn't bother me as much.  An option I've considered is to use a neutral ply to tone down the brilliant intensity of the bright green.  I will keep on spinning the singles while I think this over.  I'd welcome any opinions on this quandry, please use the comments section to contribute your thoughts.  There are 4.6 ounces of this fiber, so in a chain ply, I'd probably end up with about 500-600 yards or so of a three ply in approximately fingering weight yarn.  If I do a neutral ply I'd have about twice that.

Here is a shot of the bobbin with the singles in progress:

As I've worked with this fiber, I've thought about making my own interesting color combinations, but doing up the colors as separate small batts from my drum carder.  Perhaps blending a small bit of the colors so that the progression is smoother between the colors.

But that is an experiment for another day.... I remember how long the color study took me to finish!

Wicked!

Yesterday I went to my personal Mecca.... Susan's Fiber Shop in Columbus, Wisconsin.  She's an amazing woman that I've met many times over the years of attending fiber festivals in various parts of the country.  Starting with the Estes Park Wool Festival out in Colorado many, many years ago.  I was there for two reasons, first to pick up a set of wool combs that I had ordered and also to test spin a wheel I'm considering - the Kromski Fantasia.

She gave me a short lesson on combing - I took along some of the Nasty Romney, thinking that if combing could make that awful stuff look good, it would work wonders on any other fiber I presented for consideration!

If you've never seen wool combs, they are a pretty startling piece of gear - in the same way that a picker is - except on a much grander scale.  Spinning seems to be such a gentle craft, peaceful and serene, until you see this:

Welcome to the dungeon... mwahahahaha!

Gleaming instrument of torture, one might think.  This is one of the pair, clamped down in its base and ready for use.  The other one is swung toward the stationary comb once it is loaded up with wool locks to begin the process of combing.  Actually it works a lot like combing my own hair, although mine never gets as messed up as the Nasty Romney!

So, I'll load up the comb and get started.  Here is the first load of locks from the Nasty Romney that I dyed plum some time ago.  I've tried to spin this from a carded preparation, and I'm sick to death of picking out, ummmm "stuff" (it is the most diplomatic word I could think of) while trying to spin this mess.  Here is what the first part looks like:

First load of the combs -
Nasty Romney about to get what it deserves!

The other comb is there on the left.  Ready to start swinging, catching just the tips of the locks to draw them away on the moving comb.  This gives the trash an opportunity to fall out, as well as aligning the fiber into a very nice parallel arrangement that is a very different spinning experience than carded fiber.  Carding allows the fibers to be in a much more random arrangement in relation to each other.  Makes a fluffy yarn (think sweaters) that traps air and is warmer to wear because of it.  The combing makes a worsted preparation (think suit fabric) that is much smoother and silkier in appearance because the fibers are more parallel, they stay in alignment during spinning.  The worsted yarn isn't as warm, since it doesn't trap air, but it retains the wool's other appealing properties.  As I combed the locks, the fibers begin to transfer to the moving comb, leaving the short fiber and some of the trash trapped between the rows of tines on the comb.  Looks like this at the end of the first transfer:

After the first transfer on the combs

The fiber is starting to straighten out, and see the short stuff and the trash left on the stationary comb?  That all gets pulled off and can be scrapped, carded or used for felting.

Next step is to transfer the fiber back to the newly empty stationary comb for the next pass.  Further aligning and cleaning the fiber.  I was truly amazed at the speed of this process - sure beats picking out all the mess by hand at the wheel!  I also started to see a bit of luster from this fiber, which I sure wasn't expecting at all!

So, here it goes back to the stationary comb for the next round of combing.  I took a close up so you could see how the wool gets caught in the teeth of the comb and all the fibers are starting to line up.

Close up of what happens at the tines of the comb -
could that actually be luster in the fiber?

By this point, I was amazed that this was the Nasty Romney - it is starting to look and behave like much better quality fleece!  This might actually become pretty yarn!  Just a note, the shiny parts are the fiber itself - there is no added bling in this combing.  I might add some later on, but I want to test spin some of this without any additives to see if has really become nicer to work with - heck, it couldn't be any worse than it was when I started!


Thus ended the second pass of the fiber in the combing process.  Susan suggested four transfers on the combs for the best result on this fleece.  So that is what I did.

After the fourth transfer - ready to pull off the comb

Plum Nasty Romney - combed top

Here is the fiber after the fourth transfer.  I can hardly believe how consistent and smooth it is!  The next step is to draw the fiber from the combs.  This can be done by hand or with a small tool called a diz.  A diz is a small curved bit of plastic in this case, with a hole in the center to control the amount of fiber that can pass through at one time.  The first few draws off the combs, I did by hand, just pulling the fiber off the comb in a more or less consistent diameter.  This one, I decided to try out the diz.  I like using it, I got a much longer piece of top and far more consistent, as I expected.  Here's a look at what came off the comb:

I thought it was truly amazing... no stuff in the fiber, smooth and pretty!  I can hardly wait to spin some of this and see if it spins as well as I think it will!  I typically enjoy spinning top, so this should be a far more pleasant experience than this wool has given me up to this point.  I'm also very fond of this color, so I doubt that I'll blend it with anything else.  So... I'm off to spin some of this pretty wool.  I almost feel guilty calling it Nasty Romney anymore - but that is where it started...

Spinning in progress...

Busy, busy, busy and always more to do.  But this is what I've been working on.  I showed you the Cormo I was spinning in my last post.  I've spun up about half of what I have on hand and have this pretty little skein to show for it.

The next thing I've been working on is a pretty good sized quantity of batts that I had made of some of the pink Romney from way back when.  I blended it with some great light gray Corriedale from a ewe named Sierra from my favorite shepherd in Colorado.  I also decided to blend in a little bit of white icicle to add some sparkle to the yarn.  My original plan was to knit up a ruffled scarf that I found in Spin Off some time ago.  An odd thing happened as I worked with this blend.  The Corriedale was a little "sticky" to work with. I had washed it quite a while before I actually did anything with it, so it "rested" in that state. Since the blending was already finished, I went ahead and spun it up the way it was.  But I also decided to re-wash some of the fleece that hadn't been used in the blended batts.  Much, much better... feels clean and pleasant again.  I had no idea such a thing could happen with fleece as it sits waiting its turn in my stash.  I'll definitely chalk this up as a learning experience!  I doubt that I could spin a fleece "in the grease" since I found a little stickyness so icky to work with.

Here's a shot of the singles on the spindle and the bobbin that I load the singles onto as they accumulate.  This way I don't end up with a bunch of tiny skeins.

I still have a little more to finish up but I am on the last batt now.  The sparkle of the icicle doesn't really show up on the pictures - most sparkle fibers seem to be pretty camera shy.  I wonder sometimes how people get shots of Angelina that show the multicolor glittery effect.

I made another neat discovery.  There is a virtual knitting/spinning guild of sorts over on the Knit Picks website.  I've just joined up... it should be interesting to see what I find over there.

Until next time....



Sweater done, spinning in progress...

I love the feeling of finishing things... got a few more done this week. The never-ending sweater is finally knitted. Took a picture of it before blocking:

I like the way it turned out, but there are a couple of things I still want to do before I wear it.  Blocking would be the first thing, and I have given it the first warm bath of its life.  At the moment it is drying on a screen.  Never ceases to amaze me how the stitches smooth out after blocking.  Didn't need any wires in this one, just laid it out flat.  Second thing I'll be doing is adding a band of ribbon to the back of the button bands.  The knitting is wonderfully soft, but it isn't likely to support buttonholes and buttons without sagging.  So rather than wait for that to happen, I'll be putting the ribbon on to stabilize it.

I've also been finishing up some spinning that has been hanging around for a while. Here is a small skein of Amethyst Heather merino from Ashland Bay.  It started as one of the lovely striped tops that they are so famous for.  I just got a tiny sample (this skein is 9 grams) so that I could check the colors.  I'm pleased with this colorway, it "reads" visually as purple, but it is made up of blues, reds, pinks and grays.  Very nice indeed - I'll be ordering up more of this one. Statistics: 32 yards, 9 grams; Amethyst Heather merino top from Ashland Bay; spindle spun singles clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise 15 treadles.

This one has been hanging out on a spindle for who knows how long.  I took it off the spindle onto a bobbin and Navajo plied it to this gorgeous yarn.  It is a black Shetland wool blended with dyed mohair locks in blue and fuschia.  I really didn't expect Shetland wool to be so soft.  Love the sparkle and shine of the mohair.  I'll certainly be doing more of this blend in the future!  Statistics: 92 yards, 31 grams; Shetland/Mohair; spindle spun singles clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise 14 treadles.

This brute of a skein is the beginning of a sweater project from the color study yarns.  This is the 50/50 blend of GNR and Dolly Dorset.  Love the heathering and the color.  This isn't the softest wool, so it will definitely be outerwear.  Haven't worn much green lately, but it is a good color for me and I'll enjoy working with my handspun on a larger project.  Statistics: 270 yards, 74 grams; 50/50 GNR/Dolly; spindle spun singles clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise 14 treadles.

Meet Dusty...

Dusty - Corriedale

Ahhh, nothing like the joy of a freshly washed fleece!  This is from Dusty, a covered Corridale fleece from my favorite shepherd in Colorado.  I have a number of fleeces from this flock. I was pleased by the color and couldn't wait to start spinning, so I grabbed my hand cards and made a couple rolags.  Dusty's fleece is very fine and has a nice sprinkling of silver fibers mixed in that sparkle in the very fine singles I'm spinning. No idea what I'll do with this yet, just sampling a bit for now.  Plenty of wool for several projects here - the raw fleece was 6.75 pounds.  I'll post pictures as soon as I get a little skein of the yarn done.

Frene Creek Farm roving in process

Also in the works... this pretty handpainted roving from Frene Creek Farm.  Originally, I thought I'd blend it with a couple plies of purple merino, but as it is spinning up, I think I'll do a pale gray instead.  I've got some very soft Rambouillet/Finn that will be just the ticket.  I'm about halfway through the 4 ounces of roving.  This is such pretty wool that I am always disappointed when I have to stop spinning for a while.

Color study completed...

100% DD

Nice to finally have this finished.  The last skein is a bit larger than the others since I had some leftover singles from the LNL to use up.  The Dolly Dorset spun very nicely since all the fiber was the same length, so none of the color pooling that happened with the blended skeins.  This kind of study is very useful to keep on hand to predict what heathered colors can be produced from a single dye batch.  In some ways this comes full circle from the initial process of learning to do dyework, since I have now created for myself a simple way to estimate the amounts of colored fiber needed to create a particular shade of heathered yarn using any of the colored wools that I have on hand. 

My personal opinion is that the natural colored wools are far more interesting than white wool dyed to black, gray or brown.  That being the case, I have many black sheep fleeces on hand.  For those who don't know, any sheep that isn't white, is referred to as a black sheep and the wool is processed separately from the white wools - it takes more time for a mill to do this.  Perhaps that is my reasoning for having primarily black sheep in my own flock when I was raising sheep. 

I love happy endings, so this project has been wonderful in so many ways.  Learning new things, creating things from my own skills and being able to keep them and learn more things from them.  What's not to like?

Here's a shot of the whole batch done, and a remembrance shot of the original batts.

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted...

Ahh, the joys of screwing things up... I'm well trained in clothing design.  At least I thought I was.  I did the things I was supposed to: knit the swatch, big enough to take measurements in several spots. Check.  Start knitting, check the gauge again.  Check.

This all went well, started knitting and didn't really think about it much more.  Until the wee hours of Monday night.  Blocked the cardigan pieces, and they kept growing and growing and growing.  Took some measurements - that sweater would fit King Kong.  I did what any sensible person would do - I walked away to keep from doing something horrible to all that knitted work.

It took another day for me to calm down enough to decide what to do next.  Declared it frogged on Ravelry, banished the pattern to the back of the work in progress clipboard, and announced a new project in that yarn.  At that point, I knew I'd be ravelling out the yarn.  Just finished doing that.  In a way, it was cathartic (though disturbing) to see how quickly I could undo the mistake I'd made.

More pondering, and now I'm thinking that I may re-knit the sweater.  A size smaller and on a size smaller needles, making all the changes I thought of as I worked it the first time.  Like doing the knitting in one piece as much as possible.  As I looked over the pattern again, I noticed it had knit up about two sizes too large - certainly not King Kong, but I'd never have worn it the way it was.  So I'll go back to Ravelry, update my projects again and begin again.

Now I have experience...



25% GNR 75% DD

 On the good news front, I finished the 25% Green Nasty Romney (GNR) and 75% Dolly Dorset (DD) skein of the color study.

Vital statistics on this skein:
25% GNR, 75% DD, three times through the carder to blend colors, singles spun clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise. 92 yards in this one ounce skein.



50/50 GNR/DD



I got a lot of carding done.  I was getting tired of looking at all that Green Nasty Romney.  So I chose the blend I liked best of the color study and that was the 50/50.  Carded up seven batts of that, about 300 grams total.  Might do some more, but this amount would give me enough to make a nice vest for myself. 



Pink NR, Sierra and white icicle



I also carded up four smallish batts of Pink Nasty Romney, Sierra (silver gray Corriedale) and a little white icicle sparkle fiber.  I've had batts of the Pink and Sierra sitting around for a while, and I got inspired by the Helix Scarf pattern in Spin Off magazine.  I really like the fact that the brilliance of the really hot pink was toned down by the silver gray of Sierra and a bit of sparkle from the icicle fiber.  Should spin up well and knit up to a pretty scarf - enough going on to be interesting, but not so much as to fight with the interest of the ruffling of the scarf.

More good news - got my first Cormo fleece in the mail yesterday.  What lovely stuff that is - washing it up now.  I'll take pictures when it gets dry...

Third skein of color study...

Here is the group so far.  The 100% Green Nasty Romney (GNR) is in the back, the middle skein is the 75% GNR/25% Dolly Dorset (DD). The one in front is the 50% GNR/50% DD. 

This color study has been fun to do.  I've still got two more skeins to go, but I like what I'm learning from the process.  Good to know that I can make many shades of yarn from one dye process.  These skeins are also proving that the blending works, even when the two types of wool are vastly different and actually can make the finished yarn more interesting.  The GNR is very long and wavy in structure with a luster, while the DD is a shorter, crimpier wool with a lot of bounce, but very little shine.  The difference in length is also making the heathering more interesting - little "blips" of color appear once in a while, and I find that I rather like that effect.



50% Green Nasty Romney/50% Dolly Dorset

 Here is the newest skein and it's stats:
50% GNR/50% DD, carded batt three times to blend color well.  Singles spun clockwise, Navajo plied counter-clockwise.  Spun singles entirely by handspindle, plied on the wheel.
106 yards, this yarn is a bit finer than the others, somewhat by intent, since I wanted to test the fineness I could reliably attain on the spindle.

I'm pleased with this yarn, I'll be doing more like this for a project I'm planning.

Stashdown update...

100% GNR at top, 75% GNR 25% DD at bottom

Two down, three to go.  Here's a shot of the first two skeins in the color study.

I really like this heathered yarn. The DD tones down the brilliance of the green just enough.  Very pleasant tweedy yarn.  The colors didn't blend perfectly and I rather like that feature.  Probably a function of the different staple lengths more than anything.  The GNR is probably about one and a half to twice the length of the DD. Spun well, washed and air dried. The DD didn't really fuzz out much in this blend. I'm expecting more "bounce" as the percentage of DD increases.

Vital statistics of the 75% GNR 25% DD:
100% Wool.  75% Green Nasty Romney, 25% Dolly Dorset.  Batts carded three times to blend colors.  Singles spun clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise.  80 yards, 1 ounce skein.

Next up: 50% GNR 50% DD.

Spinning of the Green...



Green Nasty Romney on the picker

 Here's a Stashdown update.  Picked the Green Nasty Romney. It turns out that it does have pretty long staple, and surprisingly it is somewhat glossy and silky feeling.  Still a lot of veg falling out at this stage.

Weighed out and carded all the batts, ran them through three times to completely blend the colors.  I also noticed that I missed one combination in the original posting, so I did that one too.  I think it was the 25% Green and 75% Gray that was missing from the lineup.

Here's a shot of the completed one ounce batts.

March Stashdown Color Study Batts

From left to right on the picker:
100% Green Nasty Romney (GNR)
75% GNR 25% Dolly Dorset (DD)
50% GNR 50% DD
25% GNR 75% DD
100% DD

Being the orderly sort, I started on the green end and started spinning.  The GNR is a delight to spin, long and silky, still picking out veg and second cuts and a few noils. As I mentioned, not the most impressive fleece I've ever worked with, but it is making up a nice yarn.

Finished up the 100% GNR batt, plied and washed the skein and here's the result:

100% Green Nasty Romney yarn

Details: 84 yards, 1 ounce. Spun singles clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise. Hand dyed in the fleece with Dharma #447 Emerald Green Acid dye.

March Stashdown Goal

Ta-daaaaa!  I had an idea (it didn't hurt either...)  For this month, I'm going to do a color gradation study.  I'll do four one-ounce batts in different amounts to test heathering on color tones.  I'll use Dolly for the neutral and the green Nasty Romney for the color. 

Dolly the Dorset

For the first batt, I'll do 100% Green and no Dolly.  Spin it and knit up a swatch to attach.

For the second batt, it will be 75% Green and 25% Dolly.  Spin and swatch.

For the third batt, 50% of each. Spin and swatch.

For the last one, 100% Dolly. Spin and swatch.

Green Nasty Romney

I saw something like this in Deb Menz's book Color in Spinning a long time ago.  My copy is packed away in a box somewhere.  When the weather warms up I'll try to find it and do some more of this kind of testing for myself.  I have a sweater that I just adore that is made up of several heathered yarns, and each color is so much more interesting than a plain, single color yarn.  So I would like to examine some of those possibilities for myself.

Off to the carder...







Spinnable Stash

So here is the great stuff I found at the wool market!  There were several vendors there, all with wonderful things available for sale.  Since I have waaaaaaay too much fleece on hand, I tried to restrain myself.  Did pretty well - but a couple things followed me home anyway.



Corriedale cross dyed rovings

 These pretty pink/red/burgundy rovings from Frene Creek Farm.  My closest shepherd, she's just outside of town which is very handy!  I need to learn how to do this kind of painted roving, but for now, it is nice to be able to pick it up from Frene Creek.  Besides, she has an amazing collection of fleeces.  Some from her own livestock and some from other shepherds and fiber farms.

She's also got the most amazing lotion bars, I've nearly used mine up.  Guess I'll be making a trip out there again soon to replenish my supply.


Superwash BFL and Alpaca and Silk Top

The other batch of goodies I couldn't resist came from a farm that was new to me.  Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm in Harvard, Illinois.  A nice superwash BFL handpainted roving in blues/purples/teal with a touch of white left intact. The colorway is called Lincoln Park. Very nice!  Also an exquisite Alpaca and silk top in a colorway called Eeyore's Brooding, in heathered purples/blues/grays.

I suspect the lotion bar will come in very handy when I start spinning the silk.  Haven't spun silk in years, but I remember it being a little hard to handle since it wants to stick to any rough spot on my hands.

Now I need to pick a Stashdown goal for March... what shall I choose?  I'll let you know next time...

The last of the Nasty Romney... hooray!

Well, here it is, the last color and the last of that nasty fleece... saved the best for last too - purple!  #421 Plum Dandy to be specific. 
Lots of experiments went into this batch.  Did the overstuffed dye pot - see that pale bit in the middle?  Also tried re-using the hot dye bath rather than starting fresh each time (there are three batches shown here) I just added more dye and vinegar, stirred well and plopped in another batch of Nasty Romney and off I went.  Worked out well too, I think.  The dye exhausted each time (finally!) and I was left with clear vinegar water, or at least as close to clear as the nastiness of the fleece allowed.

In case anyone is wondering, this pile of wool is still damp.  I dry it on window screens over my bathtub.  Maybe this is a good time to tell you how I wash my wool.

I use 5 gallon buckets in my bathtub.  Fill the bucket about 3/4 full with the hottest water the tap will provide and put in a strong squeeze of Dawn dish detergent.  I use the blue stuff, and squeeze in enough to tint the water blue.  Then I pull off handfuls of dirty fleece and push it down into the hot water until there is only a little swishing room in the bucket.  Then I put the lid on the bucket and walk away for a half hour.  Don't fiddle with the wool too much - don't want it to felt!

After half an hour lift out the wool and plop it on the uphill side of the tub and empty the filthy (and I DO mean filthy!) water out of the bucket.  If it is warm outside, I use it to water my plants outside.  The soap is good for bug repellent and the "sheepiness" is good fertilizer for them.  Otherwise, it goes down the drain.  Then I repeat this process until the wool still carries some foam from the soap, usually it takes two or three times with detergent.  Then I rinse the wool until the water is pretty clear.  I don't go for perfectly clear because that could take days!

Since wool has to be fully wetted to take up the dye, I think the best time to do the dye is right after the last rinse.  After all, it is already wet and warm, so I fire up the dye pot and lift out a quantity of wool that will fit in my dye pot (just under 5 quarts, I use a small ice cream bucket for this) and leave the rest of the big bucket of wool soaking in case I need a clean up batch of wool.

Then I put the wool in the washing machine and spin out the majority of the water - just spin - no water spraying on the wool!

After that, I spread it out on screens and let it dry.  About once a day I put my fingers in the wool to check on it and pull open any wet/damp bits and turn the whole shebang over so it all gets dry.  Usually takes a couple days and then it is ready to pick.

Another color of Nasty Romney...

Here's another batch from the dyepot. This time it is #416 Peacock Blue. I really like this one, and I'm starting to plan what to do with this multicolored jackpot that came from the awful fleece that started this whole adventure!

One more color to do and then I'll start the next step.... picking the wool to prepare it for the carder.

For years I've "been going to" do some of this dyework and now that I'm in the process I'm really having fun! Nice when even the first attempt is successful. I feel that I'm capable of working with a nicer fleece the next time around. Thank goodness for that!

It's not easy being green...

Well, here is the nasty Romney in #447 Emerald Green. The darker part is the first dyebath and the lighter one is the clean-up batch I did to get the dye exhausted. This is getting fun now that I have some idea how it all works!

I figured out that I probably didn't have the dyebath hot enough and maybe not enough vinegar the first time around with the pink, so I did some changing on this batch and it went better this time.

Thinking that I rather like the "clean up" color as a nice coordinating color when I make up the batts for spinning. A little planned over packing of the dyepot so the dye doesn't get all the way to the middle is my next experiment.

At this point, I'm kind of playing with brights so I have an idea what the saturation level will be on white wool. My eventual aim is to overdye colored wool - like gray - to get the jewel tones. Or even to blend at the carding level to get more interesting colors and heathered versions.

Off to the next dyebath....

Dyed in the wool...

Decided to start with pink... or rather, #411 Deep Magenta. When I got the wool as clean as I could, I started the dyepot. Got the water good and hot, added the dye and vinegar and went and got a small bucket full of wet wool and added it to the pot. At first, it wasn't hot enough, so I turned up the heat, after an hour the dye still hadn't exhausted, so I added some more vinegar. Goodness gracious what a difference it made!

This is what came out after about a half hour with the extra vinegar:

The dye hadn't completely exhausted, so I took another little batch of wool and plopped it in the pot, and after about 15 minutes the water was nearly clear. It still amazes me every time I do it.