Monday, May 30, 2005

I Didn't Just Fall Off a Turnip Truck

Yeah, send the fleece to you. Good try!

I carded and combed a sample of the white coopworth lamb. It spins like a dream and I could see no noticeable difference between the two preps, so carding will be easier. I think I'm going to spin this all before dyeing. As pretty and glossy as it is, I don't really need another sweater that can't touch my skin. Too bad I've never done tapestry, because this is crying out to be woven. Hmm, I did have a private lesson in cut pile in the SOAR parking lot, so that's a possibility too. Maybe I should actually figure that out before I spin.

Now the corrie - that is baby soft and I'm dyeing this before spinning. I started dyeing 200 gram batches of fleece in my oven roaster Saturday night. I sat down with my sample book and picked out some recipes. I thought using 2% DOS would be better since the fleece ranges from almost white to charcoal gray. What I didn't think about was that my samples were done on white 8/2 wool yarn. My dye stocks were a little old, too, so that might have made a difference. Nevertheless, I'm happy with the results.





I did a preliminary run through the Louet roving carder, which has coarsely spaced teeth, to open the locks. Next weekend I'll blend them on the Duncan. I sampled the gold, rust, and blue separately then equal amounts of each blended together. I added varying amounts of the undyed and made little sample skeins and knitted up a few. It's too dark for a good picture of those.



Starting on the left is red orange (25% Washfast Red/75% Yellow), gold (50% Yellow/50% Mustard) it has a greenish tinge to it, blue (30% Bright Blue/70% Mustard) I expected olive according to my samples!, and in front was supposed to be reddish brown (25% Violet/75% Mustard) - what was I thinking dyeing a gray fleece this color? Oh well, it adds to the blend. There's 200 grams of that too, but I wanted to get a picture before it got too dark.

Keep the song suggestions coming! I'm gathering them all and I'll go through them one by one this summer.

2 comments:

  1. I'm having similar what-do-I-make-with-it issues about some roving I've just spun.

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  2. Ellen4:31 AM

    Make a blanket. If you have kids heading off to college soon (or have a niece/nephew going), all the mattresses nowadays seem to be the extra-long sort. Weave an extra-long blanket, twin size, to fit. But beware--I did a cotton one for my daughter and ended up supplying all her friends because they kept taking her blanket!

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