Dyeing and Spinning

 My friend A gave me some white roving to go with the pink she'd given me a while back.  She'd dyed some Dorset/Friesian fleece a lovely dark pink and processed it with her awesome Brother electric carder.  I sort of claimed it when she was showing me because it was really a perfect colour.   I'd spun it up and brought the full bobbin to show off at a spinning day.   She asked what I was going to do with it and I'd said I was going to find some grey to go with it and then hopefully have enough for a hat and mittens.  I think 200g should do that.  It's worsted weight though.  Anyway, she grabbed another 100g of the same fleece and gave it to me, offering me some grey dye as well.

In January the rug hookers have a silent auction and I purchased a bag of old, some really old Cushing's dyes and a book of dye recipes specifically for rug hooking.   I also have a a set of base primary colours of weak acid dyes and of fibre reactive dyes, so I figured I had enough to get a decent grey.   In the Cushing's dyes there was a packet of "silver grey", so I decided to try it and see if it worked.   

I was a little worried at first because first, dyeing roving, beautifully airy, ready to spin roving can be difficult to get it evenly dyed without any compacting or felting, and second, I'd never used any Cushing dyes before so when the dye mixed up a purple-ish colour, I wrestled with my decision.   However, I was brave and gently dribbled the dye mixture around the edges of the roving and gently lifted the roving and tilted the pan a bit to get the dye dispersed.  I was worried that I'd start felting or breaking the wet roving if I removed it from the pan.

I did a good job though.  While some of the air from the roving was definitely removed, so it's not as light and fluffy as it was, there has been no felting.  It came out of the pot with a hint of pinkish grey, by the time it dried it was a lovely grey.  

It's spinning up very nicely.   I've had no areas which were compacted and no felting, so I'm incredibly happy with both the colour and the good dyeing that I did.   I very rarely dye roving unless it's superwash, since you can't do much wrong with that in terms of felting.

The grey colour is maybe a tad uneven, but not so much that it's horribly noticeable.  Also, not really knowing how much dye I needed for 100G, since I didn't actually find the details to do the math until after everything was in the pot and simmering away made colour depth a little bit of a guessing game.  I was maybe trying for a slightly lighter grey but it's a really nice grey all the same and I'm very happy with the whole process

The grey goes so well with the pink.   As I'm plying the pink with the grey to get a marled yarn, (barber pole striping), it has a similar depth of shade so it's not overpowering and noticeable.   When this is knit up, I suspect that it will be more of a tweedy look or maybe even more of just a slightly subdued pink.  I'm really happy with the results and am looking for suitable patterns for that hat and mitten set.

A good start to May

We've had a very slow time easing into spring.  We've had snow storms, ice storms, wind, rain and cool weather.  We're even still loading up the wood stoves because the evenings are cool or uncomfortably damp.  However, that doesn't seem to stop Mother Nature from keeping things from happening.    There is a green haze on most of the trees.  We have baby leaves!   The oak trees and a few other very late  leafing deciduous trees aren't quite there yet, but they never are this early.   Some of the flowering trees are in bloom.   We always have leaves on most of the trees by Mother's Day, and despite people's worries about the trees leafing out late this year, it's happening just like it should.

I got my little tray of watercolour paints out and played around with some new techniques to make non-wintery scenes.   I've played with flowers, winter scenes obviously because I paint my Xmas cards, and have started experimenting with summery scenes.   These 2 worked out well enough that I'm happy with them, but I'll practice some more. While I've seen a few sunsets like this one, with pale colours, many of ours tend to be a bit more dramatic with deep oranges and purples.  Sunrises though, often have pale pinks and lilacs, if you catch the right time.  They are fast and the colours don't last all that long.   I decided to send out a few birthday cards though, so I figured I should practice about bit for summer cards.

I've been spinning up some of the leftover bits and pieces from my "stash" of leftovers from over the years.   This is some green ramie.  I had purchased 1/2 lb of it, and spun up maybe 3/4 of it and left the rest.    I remember it being quite slippery and an effort to spin.   Obviously my skills have developed because instead, it's just effortlessly sliding off my fingers into lovely, fine singles.    I should have divided it into two equalise pieces of roving before I started though, so I could have spun two bobbins for plying.  Instead I'm going to have to much around with either guessing or plying from a centre pull ball.   While that is how I first learned to ply, I've found over the years, that you have to be very careful when plying fine yarns from centre pull balls, so that they don't collapse in on themselves and tangle before you finish plying.  It's been fun to spin though, because I don't seem to have to really think a lot about it while spinning.  It means I can chat or "egads" watch the hockey game at the same time.

This is my friend A's dog Teddy.   While he's getting older and a bit greyer, with thinning fur, he still blends remarkably with the rug.  He's exactly the same colour as the rug and in the right light, and angle, the parts of him that are his original colour really could be the rug.   He's a sweety and a very cuddly dog with his kids.   Today though was funny as he was sleeping when I arrived for spinning day and he didn't notice for about a 1/2 hour.  Then of course, as the good watch dog he is, he made sure to let everyone know that I was visiting.. too funny.