The pitfalls of dyeing and the joys of overdyeing

So I've been playing in the dyepots lately. I'm not an accomplished dyer but I know enough to make more pretty things than I make messes. And I've learned that I don't need to accept the messes, than I can try to make lemonade out of those lemon dye jobs. Case in point--3 weeks ago I finally got a large enough chunk of time to dye the 2 lbs. of Mixed BFL I'd been hoarding for a sweater for myself. Got out the red, purple, green and orange dyes, made stock solution, applied it to the soaked 4 oz. tops (8 of them!), wrapped in plastic warp and steamed for a good 90 minutes.

The problem was, I'd misplaced my steamer rack (still haven't found the dang thing) and had to use another steamer I wasn't very familiar with. And apparently the new steamer just didn't reach a good temperature and not all the dye set. Instead of bright splashes of color on a naturally-colored striped top, I had weak colors on a dull background. I pulled off half an ounce and spun up 4 little skeins to see if I could possibly use the top. Not. So everything sat for 2 weeks, in clear view so I could think about a solution every time I passed that 2# of ugly fiber.

The original colors

Aha! I could overdye! Thinking that cool colors would work best, I first tried a solution of soft blue on a knitted sample.

Even duller than the original colors, and now the stripping effect is almost invisible. Next I tried a soft aqua.

Top-original color; Middle-dyed with blue; Bottom-dyed with aqua

Not much better, is it? So everything sat for another week while I mulled things over. And it hit me the other day that the original red I'd used would work perfectly with the other colors. The worst that could happen is that the green would turn brown, which was quite acceptable on a naturally-stripped top. And if I used a kettle-dyeing technique, the red dye would strike unevenly and give me a more hand-painted look. This is the result, and I'm incredibly happy with it.

I'm working on spinning the second bobbin of this top, and it's coming out much like multicolored cranberries. It's a great muted red with bright and dark lengths and will make a lovely sweater or jacket for me.

Writing, carding, spinning....the business of fiber moves forward

I've been writing magazine submissions these past few months. Two have been accepted and I'm hard at work trying to meet the deadline for a third. As usual with we creative folks, the ideas and execution of those ideas come easy--putting it all on paper? Not so easy, because our brains want to move on to the next exciting project. A sort of "Oh, shiny!" moment every few days, and difficult to keep oneself on track. But I manage, with the help of lots of DVDs of the sci-fi shows I missed during the winter tv season. All the good ones come on at my bedtime and watching them at their original time would find me sound asleep in my chair with knitting in hand. And the cat snoozing in my lap, having taken advantage of my being asleep to catch a nap on my knitting.

Then there's the business of trying to keep carded fiber in my Etsy shop. I could card 8 hours a day, 3-4 days a week, just to keep all my colorways up to date. On the other hand, it gives my customers something to look forward to. The best part of carding is seeing something in my travels or in the yard that I want to capture in fiber. Upstate Meadows (currently out of stock) was one of those, it caught my eye when returning from Fingerlakes Fiber Festival several years ago. Field after field of Purple Loosestrife and Queen Annes Lace blooming among all those different grasses and I couldn't wait to get home and throw things into the carder to see if I could duplicate it.

One of these days I'll card enough Upstate Meadows to spin and knit a sweater for myself. But not this week, I have other colorways to work on and rolags to refill in the shop and create. Then there's the vegetable garden (and the danged groundhogs/woodchucks who like to break in for a snack) and the berry and fruit trees to take care of. Keeps me busy and makes for quick days and sound sleep at night.

Two of the art yarns for my guild demonstration

I belong to the Butler Spinners and Weavers Guild in (surprise!) Butler County, PA. Way back in the shivery months of very early spring, one of our very skilled members--JoAnn Clark--gave a program on her felting work. She was elaborating on her technique of felting a support for the many smaller pieces she does and gave us the opportunity to felt little balls as a hands-on way to experience how her inner workings were made. And I made a casual remark about doing a program to show everyone how to spin those little balls onto their yarn.

Out of the mouths of babes! (I may be old but I'm still A Babe to Husbeast.....) I'd never really explored this technique much beyond felted and ceramic beads, so I started prowling the shops to see what interesting things I could find to spin into my demonstration skeins. It has been a fun way to stretch beyond what I've been doing, and it's high time I stepped out of my comfort zone again. A creative person needs this push, needs to expand beyond what they've been doing and see what can happen. I'm having a blast with it!

Dragonfly Friends

Dragonfly Friends closeup

Jardin de Roses

Jardin de Roses closeup

When I'm done playing with this stuff, I'll have the yarns up for sale in my Etsy shop. Unless I can't resist keeping some of them and exploring further to see what I can knit or weave with them.....

Trials and tribulations of an older house, and finishing the CVM fleece

I usually post on Thursdays or as close to Thursday as I can get. However, last Thursday/Friday was a humdinger! When I went out to water the garden, I discovered that the baby groundhogs had found yet another way to squeeze into the garden and they finished off the peas, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts. The problem has since been taken care of but it was devastating to have this happen six years in a row. I need a Groundhog SWAT Team!

Watered the garden that morning and went inside to start the laundry, only to have black water pour into the washer! I called my well guys and their first reaction, based on 60+ years experience, was that the bottom of the well had collapsed onto the submersible pump. When they arrived 4 hours later we started draining the tank and held a consultation. Meanwhile, the fellow dumping the drained water was rinsing out the bucket and noticed that the water was now running almost clear. A collapsed well does NOT suddenly run clear! So there is now a filter installed between the tank and the house water lines—we think that watering the garden caused the water table to drop and allowed particulates (a LOT of them) to enter the system. All is good now, but what a set of experiences and a lot of stress. I was exhausted and slept like a log on Friday night.

On a positive note, the blueberries and black raspberries are ripening at an alarming rate. It took me 90 minutes to pick them today!

Getting back to the CVM/Romeldale fleece, it has not been my best experience with a fleece. While teasing the locks I discovered a lot of second cuts, some of them ½” long, which means that the shearer was at fault here. In an already fine wool, second cuts make processing all that much more difficult. I picked out all that I could find but they still caused trouble in the carding. I didn’t dare put this through my drum carder so had to use hand cards. 

This is the carded fleece without picking out second cuts

This is the carded fleece after picking. Laborious picking.

Rolags ready to go

I spun the rolags on my Pipy wheel but wasn’t enjoying the experience due to the lumpiness. I know this yarn will not wear well; it will pill wildly. To compare I’ve included pix of a white CVM/Romeldale from Little Barn Farm which was processed by them and spun on my spindle. Yeah, I know the plying isn’t the best.

Even after washing the lumps are evident.

I will be going through this fleece very closely and trying to salvage what I can. I doubt there will be more than enough for a hat, a very lumpy hat. But that’s the risk we take when we buy a festival fleece. This particular fleece was rolled with the cut side out as required, but the second cuts weren’t evident when it was rolled. I purchased the front half of the fleece once it was unrolled and knew there were second cuts, but I didn’t inspect it closely enough to realize how much of the fleece staple had been chopped up. Live and Learn!

Fleeces I have stored and forgotten until recently

This past month I've had several reasons to revisit the pile of fleeces in my studio. A friend in a far-off land was asking to exchange bits of local fleeces so we could expand our knowledge, the Tour de Fleece is approaching, and the cat got into several bags of fleece that were awaiting a nice day for washing. All of which I took as an omen to get myself started on these.

I had already washed and carded a bit of the California Variegated Mutant fleece I had from ....ummmm....2006? maybe 2007? This is a kissin' cousin of the Romeldale breed and considered a fine wool. My fleece is a nice consistent moorit color and it's a color I can wear because the fleece has no sunburned tips to 'yellow' the yarn (I'm a winter and look awful in most natural wool colors). I bought half the fleece as I doubted I'd use the entire 15 pounds of wool; it was purchased at the Michigan Fiber Festival and scored 93 in the judging.

This is a difficult fleece to photograph as there's not much lock definition to it, it's so spongy and springy. I took one shot from the top so you could see the blunt tips of the locks and another from the side to show the compact nature of the fleece.

Side View

Top View

I threw the remainder of the fleece in a hot bath with a bit of ammonia to cut the lanolin and let is soak for a bit. Then into a bath with Orvus Paste, several rinses, and spin in the washer to remove excess water, then on to the drying rack. I now need to sit down and sort out any remaining second cuts (there was NO vegetable matter in this fleece, very nice!), fluff it up and get it on the drum carder.

It's a little short for what I like to spin but since it's a nice sprongy fleece, I'll be carding it and spinning it semi-woolen to preserve that characteristic. I'll let you know how it goes, and what size yarn the fleeces tells me it wants to be.

A visit to a local historic house, and there's spinning/weaving, too!

Yesterday my guild went on a field trip in lieu of our usual meeting. We do this once or twice a year when the weather is nice and we don't want to be cooped up inside--we want to see fiber stuff instead!! We met at the Vicary Mansion which is a few miles down the Ohio River, just over the hill from Cranberry and Harmony, PA.

Although they are still working on the renovation (and what historic site isn't always working on renovation?), it was a treat to explore. They have one room dedicated to spinning and weaving and also collect and research old textiles. They are the proud owners of a rare Newcomb loom and currently have a nice rug warp on it. Here's two pix I managed to take, excuse anything that's not completely clear because the room is crowded with warped looms, working spinning wheels and fascinated guild members yesterday. The Newcomb is a semi-automatic loom, meaning that many of the operations usually performed by the weaver are handled easily by this loom. That automation increases the weaver's production rate because she/he has no need to stop and advance the warp, etc.
 

Back of the loom

Front of the loom--that's one heavy beater bar!

 We wandered through the house and up to the attic which was wonderfully spacious. The Mansion personnel store their costumes here, which are used when there's an event and volunteers need to borrow period clothing. Back in the corner I noticed 3 spinning wheels, and really like the little flax wheel all set up and ready to go.

 One of the functions of the site is to preserve local textile history. They had two woven coverlets out, both of which had been assessed by Rabbit Goody when she was here in October 2012 for a lecture sponsored by our guild. The first was standard red/blue coverlet of which I could only get a full photo. I don't remember if we asked the fiber content of the plain weave component (the white threads) but the red and blue are definitely wool.

The more interesting (to me) coverlet was the orange handspun hand dyed one. The plain weave (white threads) are cotton and the orange is wool. The weaving experts at the mansion are working on replicating this one, and Dorothy has all the wool spun up and dyed with madder. Her yarn is on the little bobbins in the back left-hand corner of the full photo, and they are currently weaving up samples to make sure they have the weaving draft written properly and that they've centered the design on the panels. Very few household looms in those days were wide enough to produce a one-piece coverlet so many of them were woven in wide strips (36-40 inches depending on the individual loom) and sewn together to cover the bed.

Notice the variation in color due to exposure to light?

Closeup. This is a section about 2" square.

All in all, we had a wonderful time. If you're looking for something fun to see and want a little local history too, take a ride down the Ohio River and stop at the Vicary Mansion.

Pink! Lots of it and in different tones

A friend of mine asked if I'd be interested in doing up some special batts for her. You see, her brother is marrying a lady who just loves pink, she wants to spin and knit a special shawl for the bride and she doesn't have the equipment or raw materials to blend what she wants. Of course I'll do it for her. Purple is my favorite color of all time, but pink ranks right up there with purple.

I decided that Merino wool, silk and cashmere would make the perfect warm-yet-airy luxury blend. The first blend was a bit, ummm.....Pepto Bismol?

Pepto Bismol on the left, adjusted color on the right

So I added some darker colors to tone it down and shipped the batts off to my friend. There were two batts left over (I always start with more fiber than I need when I'm working on special orders) and I just had to play with them. I have a ball of dyed mohair that I've been wanting to use in a woven scarf and this seemed the perfect opportunity to see what I could do. I blended warm tones with one batt and cool tones with the other. I will spin each separately and use them with the mohair for warp. I don't yet know what I'll use for weft, but if the yarns sit there long enough they usually tell me what they want to be paired with.

Cool color on left, mohair in middle, warm color on right

And just to make life more interesting while I'm working on a magazine submission, I started a Wingspan with a ball of Zauberball I had sitting around (see? told you that yarn speaks to me when it wants to be made up into something!). It was great car knitting when we took a drive north for a bike trip last weekend. We'll see how soon it gets finished, since I'm only working on it when I'm bored with the magazine piece or when I'm riding in the car.

And that's what I did with MY week, how about you? What's on the wheel, what's on the needles? Or are you trying to get your gardening finished between storms and heat waves, like the rest of us?

Spindle Spinning classes at the festival, photo session

Phew! What a long weekend it was, but so much fun. The Waynesburg Sheep and Fiber Festival took place last weekend and I was tapped for judging the fiber competition in addition to teaching Spindle Spinning both days. Lots of great entries in the competition and we were stumped several times on which entry should take the blue ribbon in a category. If you make something (or many somethings) this coming year, you should consider entering them in the festival. Entry fee is just a few dollars and everyone loves to see and be inspired by the creations. It's one of the ways we can keep our fiber skills alive, by showing off and inspiring others to learn our craft(s).

For example, we had absolutely no advance signups for my spindle classes but past experience told us that I'd get a few students at the festival. I had two students on Saturday but once the Fleece to Shawl competition started, the class registration skyrocketed. I'm so happy to have hatched all those new spinners, whether they spin for pleasure or because they have sheep and want to know everything about the process.

Once I caught up with the dishes, laundry, orders and emails I was able to meet with my photographer for a photo session. Can't say specifically why we did this, but watch this space for upcoming news! At any rate, we lucked into a cloudy day on Thursday--just right for photography. Unless the sun keeps moving and the shadows move in the opposite direction and you have to keep dragging the picnic table into the shade to avoid 'burn out spots' on the pictures. We see those gorgeous photos of models wearing the latest fashion in romantic settings and think it's a wonderful sexy life to wear the clothes and travel to faraway places, but it's also a lot of work getting those shots! Much more work than I do since I'm just a small operation and don't usually use live models or romantic settings. I think we wasted an hour on capturing one particular shot that I wanted--nothing seemed to show what we wanted in exactly the way we wanted. But I always learn a little more about what makes a photo interesting in terms of content, lighting and balance. Here's a taste of what we did:

Grownup coloring books

Recently I was showing my handspun yarn to some friends, and one of them mentioned that they thought I dyed all the colors. And I realized that a many end users (you yarnies know who you are) don’t realize the numerous  techniques used to achieve colored yarn. So here comes the mini-lesson:

Animal (wool, alpaca, cashmere, angora, mohair, etc), plant (linen, cotton, hemp, etc) and manmade fibers (rayon, nylon) can have the dye applied either before the spinning process or afterwards. The phrase “dyed in the wool” comes from the act of dyeing the fiber before it’s spun into yarn; there are a lot of everyday terms and phrases that were birthed by the textile industry.

When I make my batts and handspun yarns, I use fibers that are already dyed and blend them to achieve my colorways. It would take a good deal of my time to dye the 55+ colors that I use, not to mention waiting until the weather cooperates so I could dry all that fiber in the outdoors. And since I’m my only employee, I have to pay myself for the time it takes to create my batts and yarns. Purchasing ready-dyed fibers in bulk saves me time and saves my customers money—actually I doubt that I’d be able to sell anything if I had to add dyeing time to the equation, it would be prohibitively expensive! And there’s always that color that just isn’t quite right, that red that isn’t blue enough or orange enough. Having 55 colors to play with means I can throw some blue or orange fiber into the red to achieve the exact tone that I want. My Buttermoon and Geranium batts were made that way and some of the others have a bit of blending in them before I make a striped or marbled batt for spinning.

I DO play with the dyes a little, though. There are times when I want a handpainted roving RIGHT NOW or I can’t find just the right roving in any of the online shops I visit. That’s when the dye pots come out and I end up with dyed roving dripping all over my basement or porch. It’s all tied in with my pursuit of the right colors that will match the pretty picture in my mind. I usually hit it right on the nose (but I will admit to having a decent number of “closet pieces” that will become cat beds or never see the light of day!).

It’s all just my little Box of Crayons, where I can blend and match and play to my hearts content. I grew out of using coloring books (Mom could never keep me supplied with enough of them), and I decided that I didn’t like cleaning out the brushes after a painting session, but I never lost my love of color and the joy of blending and playing with it.

It's spring, and I'm in the garden and yard every day!!

No fiber chat this week, I've been busy with the outdoors and exploring my new blending board. I'm close to  coming up with some colorways for the board, and hope to have something in the shop next week. But this week I'll bore you to tears with my gardening chat.

We had 9 trees taken out last fall and the Caterpillar tractor they used to remove the logs tore up the lawn a bit. They were very careful but that much weight on tires with large treads will do damage. So we've spent the last 3 weeks (with the help of DS #1) hauling 3 cubic yards of topsoil around the lawn, spreading it, raking it smooth, seeding it and laying down some straw to keep it in place so it would sprout. One set of tread marks washed out and had to be redone with log "stairs" to keep the rain from washing it out again. No photos, but it was a lot of work.

At the same time, I've been trying to get the garden ready for the year. Something vicious bloomed last year (looks like mullein but isn't) and cast its seeds all over the garden. I've pulled 10 drywall buckets of the dang things out of the garden. And the chickweed! Ugh! But...it's all finished, the first planting of peas and the asparagus have sprouted and I'm a happy woman.

The yard has been filled with wild violets--my favorite flower. I had warned the arborist that if he wiped out my violets with his Cat, I'd hunt him down and make him replant them everywhere! But he's safe, only a small part of the yard hasn't bloomed and I know the violets will spread over that patch next year.

And I leave you with the view from my kitchen porch, where I sip my coffee every morning when it's warm enough. This is the sight that greeted me this morning. Life is good at Chez Feisty. Geez, I just love spring!

I'm back again!

I'm back, hopefully without interruption this time. By way of explanation, the last 4 years have been ... difficult. I oversaw the renovation of my family home and the moving into same, helped take care of both in-laws in their last days, helped take care of one brother, buried him and two other brothers, had a parotidectomy (surgical removal of my left parotid gland) which was consequently diagnosed as a non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and went through radiation therapy. I thought I was handling things well, but it turns out I was slowly getting burned out. So I've taken a few months away from my online shop and hibernated a bit; did a lot of gardening (dirt makes me happy!); did a lot of knitting with my handspun; did a lot of thinking and rethinking.

And I'm back and ready to roll. I've reorganized both my Etsy shops. Feistywoman Designs will now carry knitted garments made from my handspun yarns, knitting patterns, and kits. Feistywoman Handspun is where you'll find the yarns, along with spinning batts, knitting patterns and kits. The kits are still a work-in-progress but I'm slowly updating photos and uploading items to the shops. Check the shops or my Facebook page for updates.

I've also ramped up my teaching. Lisa and I have come up with a good selection of classes, both spinning and knitting, at Darn Yarns Needles and Threads in Harmony, PA. Just stop in or drop her a line to request the class lineup, we'd love to enable you! I'm also teaching the spindle spinning classes at the Waynesburg Wool Festival, two classes a day for the weekend so there's plenty of choices to fit your schedule. I thought long and hard about teaching at the Finger Lakes Festival since I love it, but I think I'm already overcommitted for this year.

My goodness, that's a lot of links for one post, isn't it?

There's a few things in the works that have to remain secret for now, but I'll keep you posted.

New classes

As I mentioned somewhere (Facebook?), I've developed 3 new classes in my Knitting Know-How series. The first class is "Shaping your Knitting with Short Rows". Students have a choice to work on straight needles and make the Aviatrix baby hat by Justine Turner or use a circular needle for The Short Row ‘Round Earwarmer by Aimee Benson.

Aviatrix baby/toddler hat

Short Row 'Round Earwarmer

Secondly, I'm offering "Knitting Simple Lace" where we'll make the students' choice of two washcloths. Small projects like washcloths are great for teaching yourself a new stitch while creating a usable piece.

Lastly, we have "Working with Two Circular Needles". Students will be knitting a circular baby hat using two circular needles throughout--no need to switch to double-pointed needles to work the top hat decreases! For this class we'll be making the Basic Baby Hat pattern from Heather Tucker.

 

Class are offered at Darn Yarn Needles and Threads in Harmony, PA. It such a neat little town with quite a bit of history. Stop at Stohr House Bakery for fresh danish, walk down the hill to the Wunderbar Coffee House where you can grab a seat and have your danish, then wander around to the back and meet me at Darn Yarn for your class. Such a nice was to spend a Saturday.