Carding, plying, and dye failure.

Yesterday I went to visit some friends and use their drum carder. Since then, I'll have you know, I've ordered my own drum carder. A Brother drum carder. Excitement! Here are the batts I made yesterday.

The left is the heritage wool I'd been washing. It ended up being about an ounce and a quarter. The right is the alpaca/llama hybrid at three ounces.

Remember the brown and the ecru yarns I spun over the last few days? Well, I plied them. It looks nice enough, but wasn't what I was going for. The variations in the brown are all but lost. Oh well.

Another failure is the cabbage dye. Natural dyes and I aren't getting along these days. The truth is that I need to just buy some alum and get over myself. Of course, once I do this and still get sub par results I'll probably cry. Again, oh well. The light lavender/grey is just plain cabbage. The extremely faded-almost-teal-grey was with the addition of baking powder (because I didn't double check what I'd read - it should have been baking soda). It's stiff despite all of my rinsing. Right now it's soaking in extremely hot water. After this I'm likely to just give up.

And in case you think I never leave my world of wool. I've been working on a potential custom order of peg dolls. For the life of me, I can't draw a hairbrush.

Woolgathering.

First, my Yarn Along entry:

Scrappy longies. All manner of blues and greens. There are currently six balls of yarn hanging off of this project. Reading The Dark Volume by Gordon Dahlquist. It's the sequel to The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Supposedly there will be a third book out this year. And yes, a sleeping Beast foot.

I spun this to be plied with the brown from yesterday.

This is the wool I ordered recently from Mohair and More.

These are my Aang colors: three ounces each of copper and yellow and two of blue.

Three ounces of two different browns and a full pound of undyed.

Three ounces each of two greens and lavender.

One ounce of firestar in Tropical (because I just want to play around with it even though it isn't a natural fiber) and four ounces of goldenrod. I did just realize that I'm missing three ounces of another brown. Hmm. Guess I'll be emailing the company.

This is heritage wool given to me by a friend. The clump on the left has been washed in near boiling water more than ten times. It's still not as clean as it could be.

I hand carded it regardless. I just can't waste any more water on it. I'll get around to the other half eventually.

Crafting On!

Less words, more pictures!

My fiber order arrived (pictures later). I hackled two browns together.

And then spun it.

This is handspun merino soaking in red cabbage water. Tasty, no?

I'm still cleaning this same fleece. Every time I get more grit in the bottom of the bowl. Will I ever be done with this?

Linking up with Nicole.

Giveaway winner!

Remember this giveaway? Well, I remembered to pick a winner last night after my helpers had already gone to bed. So this morning, bright and early, we dove in.

All sixteen entries.

The Imp picks a name.

The Beast wants to pick one, too. Guess it's a good thing I have another hank to give away!

The winners are Crunchy Mama and Julie! I will email you both by the end of the day (but feel free to email me first if you'd like).

Thank you to everyone who entered!

*blink*

You knew it was coming.

A second light saber.

Thank you everyone for your comments on my last light saber. Without the awesome pattern I followed, it would have been a mess. Details here.

Appa is coming along. I still have a lot of sewing to do for his feet, but at least he has a head. His head/back arrow will be added last.

Ah, yarn! More of the black/white/red stuff - a single and a two-ply. The pastel yarn is my first attempt at intentional (and consistent) thick-and-thin. It was more difficult than I like to admit. The final fuzzy yarn is the alpaca/llama hybrid that I spent a week washing. I couldn't managed to card, hackle, or otherwise wrangle it into behaving. So I spun it in clumps. I think it worked out really well. I'd like to ply it with something - with luck I'll have enough for an upcoming sheep doll. Yes, a sheep knit from a llama.

And as I'm sure you're all tired of hearing: Don't forget to enter the giveaway to win some of my handspun yarn!

Yes, it's true.

I must be masochistic. Here's what I spent my morning making:

No, not the kids. Not the robe (that was made by my mother-in-law for the Elf many years ago). Yes. The light saber. A crochet and foam monstrosity. They've been fighting over it all day. Of course I will be making two more. Whether I want to or not. Details here.

Also, the giveaway is still open!

Yarn Along

Joining up with Ginny for the Yarn Along.

Still reading The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist. I read this when it first came out and wanted to see if I still loved it. I do. I really do. Also I have another book by him that I think is related, so it doesn't hurt to refresh my memory. Crocheting Appa still. Well, actually I'm not crocheting. I'm sewing. Sewing lots of teeny crocheted bits together. Why do I do this to myself?

I knit this hat last night and finished it this morning. I used some of the wool/mohair I've been spinning. I'm relieved to see that it knits up fairly normally. I mean, it's bumpy, but not so unbalanced as to create weird looking stitches. The Imp loves it. We call it his Deadpool hat because it's the same colors as the Marvel character.

It fits the Beast, too.

And me. Somehow I managed to hold the camera in such a way as to make the flash mount appear to be weird fangs. Yep. This is why I stay behind the camera.


Don't forget to enter my handspun yarn giveaway here.

Yarn giveaway

Spin, spin, spin. This is my life.

A two ply and a single. I'm hoping my single proves to be spun well enough not to pull apart. To be honest, that's why I ply so often - I'm not confident about my singles.

And here's my giveaway.

Details: Wool/mohair blend. Approximately 61 grams (2.1 ounces) and 31.5 yards. It's a pretty thick (and not consistent) yarn.

Leave a comment and you're in. Feel free to check out my Etsy shop as I have a few handspun hanks for sale (this is totally not required, just a shameless plug). I'll pick a winner on Sunday night.
The giveaway has ended! Thanks for your comments!

Week/ending.

I have been very absent. The heat, the fleece, the boys. Yes. Absent from this space, perhaps.

Here's what I've been up to:

These are the plied version of the two singles I had spun the last time I posted. Everyone says they look like cotton candy - which is really not where I meant to go with it.

I'm going to have a giveaway for this hank of handspun. There isn't a great deal of it, but it might make a nice trim or.. cozy for something. I don't know. I'll weigh it and measure it tonight and post it tomorrow.

A pig! He's only got the one arm. Today I'll start his leg (before I run out of yarn). Poor pig, but he's already been quite loved by my youngest.

This is how I spent all weekend. B and I watched Downton Abbey while I endlessly crocheted bits of Appa. It's hard to see but there's his head (which I cannot finish until I buy larger eyes), 18 toe pads, six foot pads, six *under foot pad* pads, 18 toes, two ears, two horns. Ugh. I think that's it so far.

Boys + Legos = Bliss. Well, and a mess. But that's obvious, right?

This is my latest love/hate relationship. A friend lent me a hackle. I'm learning. Slowly. After impaling my finger (okay, cutting it enough to necessitate a bandage), I think I may have figured it out.

Crafty crafting

Okay. Honestly I just couldn't come up with a subject to say "wool!" that I hadn't already used. So.. yeah. Here's what I've been up to.

Princess girl not only has a new hair style (that being one that my boys can't easily pull out), she also has clothes! I assure you that the pattern looks much better than my representation of it.

This is the roving from yesterday all spun. I finally figured out why I thought I hate spinning merino. I forgot to split the roving. Drafting is seriously fifty times easier if you aren't trying to pull from a huge chunk of roving.

This is the roving from.. Friday? Whatever. It's been plied with the above single. But it started raining so my lighting is terrible. I'll post pictures of it tomorrow with the yarn along (heads up: there may even be a giveaway!).

Look! More washed and dried fleece! It never ends!

Linking up with Nicole today.

Weekending

Would it surprise you to hear that my weekend was full of wool? I bet not.

These are the braids of merino that I dyed late last week.

I'm thinking about plying this one with the other blue I posted on Friday.

This one was given to a friend who shared much fibery goodness that you will see later in this post.

My boys are currently obsessed with Avatar: The Last Airbender. This was supposed to be in tribute to the main character, Aang. But my colors didn't turn out exactly how I wanted them. It just looks like some tropical mess instead.

Query: Should I spin all of my rovings or sell some?

My earlier mentioned friend gave me some wool/mohair blend roving to play with, two huge trash bags of fleece to wash, and lent me her hand carders.

This is what I did while soaking the fleece in batches.

This is the llama/alpaca hybrid. I'm still not done picking the "crud" out of it (I've enlisted the Elf's help - he's being paid). So this is *way* less than half of it.

This is all of the llama. I picked it clean and washed it all over the weekend. Let me tell you, llamas are dusty creatures.

Uhm. Wool?

Yes. I have a problem. I am a fiber addict. I give you proof:

This gal finally has hands. I was supposed to sew them. Instead I wet felted them. Because wool beats sewing any day.

I was dreaming of shady forest pools while I dyed this lighter than air merino. Shiny rocks under graceful ripples. Sunlight peaking through the trees to highlight the water. Yes. I was dreaming when I dyed this.

For the past month or so we've been saving yellow onion skins. This is the result. Not impressive, is it? Well, it's softer than pillows (hello, merino. I love how you feel but am not crazy about spinning you) and the sweetest creamy wheat color. Next time maybe I'll cook the skins longer. Or soak the yarn longer. Or *gasp* find some suitable pots and mordants.

I wanted to share the pictures of the merino roving I dyed this morning. Alas, dye and cameras do not mix. I'll share my results when they're done!