Grease Dyeing Part 1

My TDF team put forth some challenges for the Tour. One of this week's was dyeing in the grease. So far it's pretty similar to regular dyeing, but we'll see how the wool comes out at the end. Here's some photos of the process so far.

 While I still have plenty of blue and green left to work with, I figured I'd try for orange, but not directly. I was hoping for a bit of variegation.  Since I have found that it is much harder to add enough yellow to red in order to make orange, I started with the yellow.

 I added a bit of red to fairly spaced out areas, hoping that these areas would stay fairly red, while it would spread to orange everywhere else. This was not the case. Once the red diffused through the water, the wool was just looking pink, so I added more yellow. I ended up with more dye than wool, so I added more wool. That's the nicest part of grease dyeing so far. While I did soak the first set of wool, I just grabbed more wool out of my bag and stuffed it in.

Turns out the dye had been orange at this point, but the first set of wool seemed saturated, so now the new wool gets to soak up the orange. We'll see how it goes when it dries...

• Will there be yellow?
• Will the first wool just be pink?
• Will the orange be variegated since it went in dry?
• How will the wool come out with all the grease, dirt, and veg that didn't get removed in the first wash?

I guess we'll see in a few days.

TDF Day 1

 This is what I got done today from my Bella Wool. I had part of the bobbin done before today, but this is today's.

 Here's my helper. He hung out with me for a bit. On the leg that treadles...

And some lovey merino to be plied with that red mohair. Now I just have to get that spun too.

TdF2015 Before Inventory

Tour de Fleece starts in, well 65 minutes, but I'm not that dedicated, so it'll wait until I get up tomorrow. But before the spinning starts, I had to go through and see what I had to work with and just how much of it there was. So the rest of this is just going to be photos and captions. We'll see how it changes by the end of the tour.

I've got two nice sets of flax. That might not get much attention this time.

Here's my silk collection. I've already got some of the black done on a drop spindle. I would like to get through a bit more of that.

Some angelina, someday it will get blended into something, maybe if I spin for the Celestarium.

Yak! Two colors, to be spun with other things. It's going pretty well on the spindle.

Camel and cashmere! The cashmere is the whiter fiber on the right. It's going to be spun and then plied with the lighter yak.

My own dying of the Border Leicester/Cotswold from my friends. I have 21 birds' nests of the blue green.

Two different sets of natural BFL.

Various other wools including Shetland, Romney, Corridale, Polsworth, and Wensleydale.

Alpaca, from the same purchase. I just didn't get around to dying all of it.

Mohairs

An abundance of Merinos

Random and brightly colored wools

Merino blended with flax, yak, alpaca/silk, and silk respectively.

Merino/silk and Polsworth/silk to be plied together

Blended and unblended Siberian Husky

Cotton and rose

TDF Swap!

It's getting to be Tour de Fleece time again! This year I'm on the Paradise Fiber team, Team DIY & Dye, and the official Climbers team for those challenging themselves.

Team DIY & Dye is a team for those who start with fleeces and end with colored yarn, a perfect fir for all of my Bella Wool that I still have (shifty eyes...) In addition to the general TDF posting, this team also did a pre-tour swap that I got to be a part of.

As luck would have it, my swap partner and I live within driving distance of each other so we decided to meet instead of shipping our packages, and we had a great time.

I was so fortunate to be paired with her! She is an extremely talented crafter. She made me some HP themed stitch markers, a shawl pin, and a felted bowl. She also included various amount of "chiengora" (dog fur)- some blended, some not.

Enough words, how about some pictures!

 Here's the bulk of it. There are a few things that the individual pictures aren't loading right now, so tucked away in there are two different packages of flax and a great HP mug with amazing teas and hot chocolates, I can't wait!

 HP awesomeness! My great swapper saw that I'm in the HP KC HC and got me a bunch of HP items including two boxes of Every Flavor Beans, Jelly Slugs, and some hand made stitch markers. Yep, she made those! We're got Tom Riddle's diary, complete with individual pages inside, some butter beer, a snitch, and everybody's favorite anthropomorphic clothing!

 Here come the pooches. We've got a couple bags of straight dog down, as well as some blended with some Wensleydale! I can't wait to give it a try!

Sorry that it's sideways, but she shows her awesome talent once again. Yeah, she made this amazing shawl pin as well! All that can be said is wow!

Here is a lovely hand felted bowl, that she crocheted, out of her own hand spun yarn. No she didn't raise or sheer the sheep herself, but that's about her limit...she does have turkeys though...





So that was my amazing swap so far, she also included a little box to open on the first day of the tour, I can't wait to see what's in there! Wooly people are just the best!