Where does the time go?

Oh my gosh! Has it really been since September since I have posted? Well this confirms something that I have thought about and that’s that I am no blogger. However, I have been busy, I promise you. Here’s what’s been happening fiber wise.

I got some of the carding finished and made a scarf out of the undyed yarn. It’s a pretty Aryan fisherman color with a touch of grey. Because of the fancy pattern, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to dye it or not. Since it is a gift, I’ll let the gifted decide if she would like it any other color.

Here you can see some progress on the scarf.

Here is the completed scarf, “Lobster Trap Scarf with Fishnet Trim” by Lyn Robinson. I did not put on the fishnet part. The pattern can be found here:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lobster-trap-scarf-with-fishnet-trim

Here is a closeup of the pattern.

I got that scarf finished except for the blocking. I still need to do that.

I continued to spin more of the same fiber to make more yarn for another scarf. This time though, I knew that I wanted to dye it. Dying is one of many of the creative parts of the spinning process. You can dye your fiber anytime during the process.

For this scarf, I decided to dye the fiber after it was carded, but before I spun it up. I have these lovely, soft batts that I threw in the dye pot and dyed them pretty much the same way I dyed the yarn mentioned in the last post. Since I’m back to work and the days are coolers and shorter in daylight, I had to dry the batts around the house. For a couple of days it was like a maze going from one room to another.

And yes, there are several colors there. I used blue, peacock, teal and turquoise. When I spun them up, I got a variegated yarn. I wanted something that looked like water with all its various shades/hues of blue.

I started a scarf as a gift, but the colors were coming out all "blocky" not flowing like I envisioned. So I ripped the scarf apart and tried it another way...and ripped that out and tried again. I finally got it going the way I wanted. It is a pattern of my own design. And of course, it need blocking too. I don't really like to block I discover, but it really does make the final product so much nicer. I'll get to it *g*

I have one more scarf/gift to make. But before I could start on that, it was time to make a few scarves for the Special Olympics. For the past couple of years, I've gotten some students together to make (crochet) scarves. This year another teacher (Hi Donna!) wanted to do that, so I am only along for the ride *g* The kids are doing very well and we will have lots of scarves to mail away this year. This is a good thing. Here are the three I made.

Now that the Special Olympic scarfs are done that I said I'd make, its time to get to the final gift scarf. I've spun two skeins so far and need about 3 more. This one is called Mirror Lake Scarf by Lisa Gentry. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mirror-lake-scarf

It is made by sewing crocheted squares together. I plan to make the squares and then dye them in a light shade of yellow and green. If all goes well, I would like to make a green and yellow "barbershop" yarn to use for the edging.

Well that pretty much gets us all up to speed. Thanks for looking!

Irish Mist Stole

I know its been a while since I’ve posted anything. All that blending takes time, and since I started this blog, I’ve had to go back to work. I am very thankful that I have a job in this day and age, don’t get me wrong, but it does cut into my fiber work *g*

In between all that carding, I got it in my head that I wanted to make a vest for myself. Found the perfect pattern that was all very sleek and modern. I went out with a good friend of mine (hiya Chris!) and we spent a day looking for the perfect yarn. We looked here, we looked there, we looked high and we looked low. Saw many beautiful yarns that would have made up wonderfully into the vest, but I had my heart set on the color rust.

I’m sure that many of you realize that colors come and go in popularity, and rust is just not popular right now. I found cinnamon, pumpkin, gourde, fall fiesta, tan, orange, spice, and more too numerous to name. However, none of them was rust. Chris and I even went to Manning’s, in New Berlin. In my mind, if it is not at Manning’s, it doesn’t exist. They had no rust. I was heartbroken and was seriously thinking of doing it in another color. I was looking around, looking for a good alternative, when I came across several baskets of spun yarn that had not been dyed, any way shape or form. It was then when it hit me. I know how to dye yarn. I’ll dye it rust! Happy Day!

In for a penny, in for a pound seems to be my way of life. I found some rust dye (I like Cushing’s), but solid rust would be too boring. I also picked up some dark brown, old gold, olive green and crimson. I then spent the next couple of days dying my yarn purchase. To make a long story short, I did not make the vest. It turns out the pattern was hard to make the right size, plus Chris and I realized that from the back, the vest had this awful way of framing your butt. We laughed and called it a butt window and believe me, it wasn’t pretty. We looked around of something else to make with our yarn and I came across this lovely pattern for a shawl/stole done in filet crochet.

Dying yarn or fiber of any kind can be done in many different ways. Here is a video describing one method of dying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfAW3w8o2tc&NR=1

I used a method very similar to the one in the video, but I use liquid dye, not powder dye. Well the dye starts as a powder, but I dissolve mine in water before I use it. It’s a personal choice. *g*

So here are my materials all set out to start the dying.

The baster is used to put the dye where I would like it and the tongs are used to remove the skeins of yarn. After being in boiling water, those babies are HOT!

To give you an idea of the colors, here is a paper towel with the dye on it. The colors will not be exactly the same, but close enough.

To start, I set my dye pots on the stove filled with water and vinegar and get them to boiling. I bought 2 large skeins of yarn. To make the dye adhere more evenly, I divided each large skein into two smaller skeins. I could then put 2 skeins in each dye pot. So what I have now are two pots of boiling water with 2 skeins each ready to go. It smells a lot like Easter time, what with the boiling water and vinegar *g*

Here are the skeins in the pots. The yellow yarn is used to tie the skeins. Loose yarn in a pot of boiling water is not a good thing.

I could not hold the camera and put the dye where I wanted it, so I only have pics of the yarn after the dye has been added. But I think you get a good idea of how it goes.

The steam can be impressive.

Showing the true colors is also hard for me. I have a picture that is a little too dark and one that is a little too light. The true colors are somewhere in between. *g*

As soon as the water has no more color in it, (the dye having been absorbed by the yarn) I drain the water, rinse the skeins in cold water and hang them up to dry. I hung them on the fence thinking there would be good air circulation there. Mistake.

The dog was there too and it didn’t take her more than 2 minutes to decide that those beautiful, wet, hanging skeins were a major threat to our way of life and she proceeded to destroy them. Fortunately, her idea of destruction was to pull them off the fence and get them covered with leaves and other debris. When she discovered that they were not edible, she left them alone. That took her 2 minutes. It took me 2 days to clean all the junk off, *g*.

By the way, my dog was on the OTHER side of the fence. I would have loved to have seen how she pulled the skeins to her side of the fence.

Here is the finished product. The pattern is called Irish Mist Stole by Doris Chan.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/irish-mist-stole

So that is what I have been doing to keep myself out of trouble. Thanks for reading!

Blending the Fibers

Now is the time to begin to blend the fibers together. This is the stage when a lot of magic happens. Again, there is so much choice when you do spinning. You can blend the fibers just a little bit so you still have bits of identifiable fiber or you can blend the fibers so completely that the fibers lose their individuality and become something new…just like magic. For this project, I chose to blend all the fibers together. Why? I’m glad you asked!

I am going to dye the yarn a bit later in the process. Again, you can dye the fibers now, or at the batt stage (I’ll show you that in a couple of minutes) or when they have been turned into yarn. Can you picture in your mind all the fibers blended uniformly? Now, when I dye the yarn, each of those fibers is going to react to the dye just a bit differently. Let’s say I am going to dye the yarn pink. The mohair is going to be pink, but with a bit of a kick. The yak, being darker, will be more like a rosy pink. The merino will be pink, and the silk will be pink, only glossy and so forth. Those subtle differences will produce a yarn that will have richness/a depth to the color that will not happen if I used only one fiber. If I were making an afghan with cables and other fancy stitch work, then I would probably want to use one fiber and have a very solid color. That would make the stitch work pop out. As you can see, there are lots of little decisions that need to be made before you start. Of course, you can always change your mind. *g*

I started by taking my big bag of fibers and dividing it into 10 even piles by weight. I chose 10 piles because it made the math easier.

You may be saying to yourself, “Self, those piles don’t look even”. Right you are! They don’t look even, which is why I measure by weight. Each of those piles is 2 ounces. And yes…it did take a while to weigh out all those fibers.But with such soft, luscious fibers to touch, am I complaining? Nyahhh...

The next thing that I do is separate each pile into 2 piles. I can pretty much do that by eye and feel. I do that because 2 ounces is just a little too much for my carder to handle the way that I’d like. So I start “feeding” the fiber into the carder. It really doesn’t matter, in this case, what fiber I start out with.

The image on top is of the BLF going through. The one below shows the tussah silk doing its thing.

Here is a nice video showing you the process. She has the same carder as I do, only hers is electric, while mine has a hand crank. Would it be catty to mention that she is the wife of the man who makes these carders, Mr. Strauch. no less? Ehehhehehe He’s a nice man. I had the opportunity to chat on the phone with him while in the process of deciding what kind of carder to get. I’m very happy with the carder I finally bought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44m18Szd8Mk&feature=feedu

Once the carder has filled up with fiber, it needs to be removed. The fibers are now in a form called a batt, and yes, it is very soft and fluffy like batting for a quilt.

Here is a picture of my fibers after going through the carder once. If you look carefully, you can still see some of the unblended fibers. I’ll send it through again until it is blended the way I want it for this project.

Now I have a completed batt. It just beautiful in my mind and once I have all the fibers carded, I can start spinning. Here is a picture of three batts lying across the back of a chair. The lighting isn’t the best, so the color is a little off. It is not white, but more of a taupe color, with lots of shine from the mohair.

I can then take a batt and roll it up into a "cloud". The cloud keeps the fibers from getting tangled and such, while I am making more.

That’s about all right now. Carding is a fun activity, but slow, and again I don’t do it 24/7. What do I do when I’m not carding? Stay tuned! *g*