Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Back In The Spin of Things

So I'm back in the spinning groove and loving it. Last week, Nancy gave me some Brown Sheep superwash roving in turquoise, beige and black. 

I had originally carded them into stripes but after throwing in some of the rest of the mismatched fiber into the drum carder after my striped carding session and spinning the batt, I found tha I liked the blended look so much more. Blending the three colors again and again on my carder gave the batt a heathered look and the end result looks wonderful. I managed to get 230 yards out of 4 ounces which isn't bad. I still can't see how spinners can get 400+ yards with the same 4 ounces...


I was planning to use this yarn to knit socks with, but probably will reserve it for something else instead since it's not as tightly plied as I would have liked. Somehow my plying skills have slackened a bit...

Besides spinning on my wheels, I've also picked up my handmade drop spindle and started spinning some of my own hand dyed roving as well. This one is for the the Rav Spindlers' April challenge called "Celebrate". 

Now I don't really need a challenge to get spinning but it seemed a good reason to pick up a drop spindle and give it a few spins...and then a few more.   I ended up spinning on the drop spindle till midnight, all the time wondering why the hell I was bothering with drop spindling when I was surrounded by three wheels.   But what the heck, right? Somehow I like drop spindling as much as I like spinning on my wheels.

The "Celebrate" challenge yarn is being spun from one of my first attempts at space-dyeing 4 oz rovings in my crock pot. I'm a pretty slow dyer these days since I'm using the crockpot method but right now, it's just the way I like it.  I called this colorway "Rosie" because I'm just running out of names.  

This one was dyed using what I call the "dry-powder" method.  I layer fiber, dye powder, fiber, dye and so on, and then pour hot water over it all to cover.  I then add the vinegar by pouring it along the sides.  I then dye for about 90 minutes or till the water runs clear.  You never quite know what you'll end up with and I like that unpredictability.

Talking about unpredictability, this one came out too yellow when I really wanted a greater concentration of lilac so I over-dyed it with more lilac and kelly green - but instead it's come out totally dark green. I do like it though - the color immediately game me its name - "Eden" (picture to come!).

3 comments:

Lisa said...

What beautiful fiber on your drop spindle! Reminds me of rumpelstilskin!

fiberfreek said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
fiberfreek said...

and then he read the rest of it....."I overdyed it...."......I'm sitting in my office with my head on my desk sobbing......"why.....WHY.....WHYYYYYYYYYY" !!!! The yellow was incredible!!!! (love ya man!)