The Big Fish

I've been spinning white silk, weaving the same brightly colored warp, and knitting a sock. No picture opps there. So why don't you have a look at the fish Josh caught last weekend. Josh is in the sleeveless shirt and orange shorts. The fish was tossed back in after the photos were taken.

Some More Sampling

I'm trying to find the best way to take pictures to get the truest color. Taking them outside (but not in direct sunlight) with no flash helps, but as you can see here the background can work against you.

The colors are good, but the mesh table distracts. The three knitted swatches have (from left) 0%, 25%, and 50% undyed fleece in the blend. Despite the middle swatch looking so red (I just eyed the amounts) I think that's the blend I'm going with.

I tried a piece of white poster board, but it was too glossy and gave off a blue aura. I like your idea, Ellen. Maybe blankets would be a good thing for this wool. The kids like the Bartlett blankets and this wouldn't be any scratchier.

Didn't I tell you the white coopworth was glossy? It just glows - you can barely make it out in either picture.

The kimono warp is on the loom. More about that tomorrow.

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.

Any Advice?

I've got about 3.2 lbs. of washed Coopworth lamb. The locks are about 6" long. It has a beautiful glow and is soft, but not next to the skin soft.

It could be a rustic cardigan. Maybe a rug? Do I card or do I comb? Dye now or after I spin it up?

I know I'm going to dye my gray corrie and card it on the Duncan. That's on my list for this weekend. I'm looking over my samples now. I think I'm going to do three batches and blend them while carding. I'm going back and forth between closely related colors for a heathery look or three colors further apart from each other. I'm giving myself until tomorrow night to decide.

I'm having so much fun working on my top 100 list. I agree, Cathy, definitely Cream. White Room is good - I like Strange Brew, too. Right now I'm stuck in the late 60's - 70's with lots of Led Zeppelin, CCR, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and Santana. When I think of my freshman year of college all I can think about is In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida! The girls across the hall had the arm of the changer set to repeat and the freakin' thing played over and over again. I have to tell you, though, 1975-1985 is a blur. If it wasn't Sesame Street or Raffi, I can't remember it! My younger sister will have to fill me in. I have over 400 songs on my iPod so far. I also have them all in a spreadsheet. This weekend I'll be weeding the garden and the playlist.

My Quest

I was listening to John Sanford's latest, Broken Prey, on my brand spankin' new iPod (a Mother's Day present) this weekend. In the story, his wife gives him an iPod and a gift certificate for 100 songs, but he hasn't downloaded any songs yet because he's trying to come up with his own list of the top 100 rock songs. At the end of the novel, he presents his list. The gauntlet has been thrown. Stay tuned.

I was too tired to work on my warp tonight, but that gave me time to finish spinning, then ply, the reconfigured Lampspun batt. I agree, Lisa, the blues (shades of royal and teal) look great with the natural brown alpaca. The skeins are drying as I type.

It's All a Haze

Check out the haze this little bundle of merino, alpaca, and silk made when blended on my Duncan. When I picked it up at SOAR (from Lambspun) I liked the colors, but when I went to spin it the three colors were actually pretty distinct rovings and didn't want to spin together. Then I remembered my poor neglected Duncan and this is the result.

I finished another paper tonight so with any luck I'll get the kimono warp presleyed tomorrow night. Sara, the last 76 ends of black with a little red-violet will be the band. I'm using black weft to keep it from looking too stripey. We'll see what it looks like after it gets on the loom.

Time for a Perk Me Up

and color does it every time! I wanted to make the kimono (the same one that Caroline is doing in overshot) in Sara Lamb's Warp Painting Plus. If you don't have this video, you are missing out. Sara and Mollie Freeman walk you through painting a warp, making the kimono, and color sampling for future projects. I think I bought mine from Victorian Video. I bought a bunch of mercerized cotton for warp painting (10/2 and 5/2), but haven't had time to wind the warp, let alone paint it. Then I remembered the leftovers from the Lunatic Fringe color gamp a couple of months ago. I wound a warp 6 yards long with 16 colors, about 24 ends each, some colors ran out at 22-23 ends. I finished up with *10 black, 4 red-violet* (repeat 4 Xs) and finished with 20 black - this will be for the front band. At 24 epi this will give me about 19" in the reed. The warp is 10/2 in black.

I have my eyes on the end of school. I teased up some lovely, soft corrie. I want to sample it before I decide if/how I'm going to dye it. If I can finish my paper tomorrow night I'll have three free weekends with no classes. Whoppee!