Sunday, April 25, 2010

Exhaust Dyeing

So you are doing a spot of dyeing.  Normally I use oven bags and boil them in a pot of water but if I want a more consistant dye, when doing a yarn for example, I do a dye bath instead.  This is basically just putting your colour in the water then simmering the yarn in the water.  You soak in your mordant first.  Fibre tends to take up as much dye as it will take up in the first 10 minutes of heating so more often than not you end up with a pot of dye water that would still dye fibre, albeit a little lighter.

I had this problem after dyeing my BFL/Silk and didn't want to waste the water so pondered as to what to put in the pot.  I did bring some raw wools back from SA so thought I might put one of them in.  I chose the English Leicester as it's not so inclined to felt as the xbreeds.  It also has a most lustrous curl.  So how to proceed with wool that is filthy??

I had a bucket with mordant and hot water in it, so in went the fleece.  To this I added a really good squirt or two of dish washing detergent to cut the grease (or I would have if all the bottles in the house weren't mostly empty, in which case I rinse all the detergent I could scrap out of the bottles).  I did add a bit more hot water to assist getting the filth out.

After about 1/2 an hour I put the wool into the dye pot..the mordant water looked like this...

The wool was from the neck of the sheep so not under the protective cover that reduces some of the dust collection...

And here it is going into the pot..
I still had a couple of oven bags in there simmering.

Now I did add a bit more colour to the pot but I'm not going to share exactly what I did.  Gotta keep some techniques to myself.

And here is the outcome....
Again the camera lets me down, there is quite a bit of turquoise in this fleece, and blues, purples and a touch of pink hues as well...  You can see how shiny it is...I did end up rewashing it the next day as it still had quite a bit of lanolin left in it..
I will post some pics of it when I card it as it looks gorgeous..

English Leicester is a unique fibre and very easy to ruin when spinning it.  It has a beautiful lustre and curl reminiscent of Mohair.  On the bright side, it doesn't shed like Mohair.  If you spin it like normal wool your usual result is a kind of string which is quite scratchy when you wear it. 
Luckily the sheep itself has taken care of this by growning a long fleece with a curl rather than a crimp so you can spin it quick, with little twist, thus retaining the softness and loft of the fibre.  It also makes great Bouclé, which is what I aim to make with this particular fibre.

Market Preparation

So I've been busy doing spinning of yarn to sell at the local Craft Market on the 1st of May.  I bought some 24micron Merino tops for the purpose.

I've been spinning it plain white, planning to dye it as yarn.  This being because you get a different effect when you dye the yarn as opposed to multi coloured braids yet to be spun.

I have varying thicknesses of yarn and weights.  The finest being a true 2ply sock yarn.  So onto some photos...




They're looking a bit shabby like that but if I reskein them they will look totally different.  So I am of two minds..
I also dyed up the BFL/Silk I spun  up for myself..it's a lovely cornflower colour

so, since I was dyeing anyways, I thought I'd do some tops as well.  Normally I would sell these and not have the pleasure of spinning them so it's going to be a treat to spin them up myself.  Here's hoping the yarn sells well so I can do some more..


It looks kind of ordinary like this doesn't it????

So I wave my magic wand and it ends up looking like this....


What can I say....
The biggest problem we have when photographing our product is the colour.  These colours aren't quite true and I would have to mess around with lighting and the flash to get it more true to colour.  There is a lot more pink hue in these tops, so the purples are more purple and there is more depth to the blues..


Sunday, April 4, 2010

Back to wool biz..

I was very busy whilst on holiday, spinning.  I took my Majacraft Little Gem complete with jumbo flyer for plying and skeiner.  After all, I was visiting my wool friends on a farm..what better place to take your wheel.

I did actually start spinning at the beach.  I took some English Leicester/Finn/Border Leicester/Corriedale fleece in white, all carded and ready to go.  Also some black English Leicester/Finn.  I started on the white, plied it with some black, finished the white then continued with the black.  Unfortunately my subconcious has had enough of finer spinning and each ball got thicker.  The last of the black is a chunky.  I do have more of it so will try to spin some finer to use with the white or black and white.
black top 235m 350g, bottom 139m 157g, white 562m 355g, black and white 417m 350g
I came back from SA with quite a bit of raw fleece only to realize that I left my carder clamps with Jane's daughter who is playing with my Knitters Loom.  Luckily I also bought back some exotic blends and decided to spin one up and keep it for myself rather than sell it.  It is Blue Faced Liecester and Tussah silk. 50/50 blend.  BFL is not found here in Aus at all.  It's a very lovely wool, fine, soft and glossy.
I have plyed one skein so far..it is very nice in chunky..

I still had quite a bit left on my bobbins considering the above skein is 387g, 266m.


I could not fit any more onto the bobbin but I could have if I had been more careful in moving the yarn guide.

So I guess I had better find a pic of the fleece I bought back..
Left, Priscilla English Leicester/Merino
back black, Sista EL/Merino
Clear bag(back right), Mooritt Romney X
Black front, 2 Tags, EL/Finnx
White Front, Pure English Leicester Stud Ewe

Might just show off a few other goodies I got from my friend Ron who works wood.
An Ebony spindle (18g) and a custom made diz with threader (you use this for making batts into roving, if you are interested in seeing one work have a gander on uTube, also if anyone wants one they are $25 AU+post, send me a message and I'll put you onto Ron)
And the Pièce de résistance for me was doing a deal on this...

The jumbo ball winder is mine, it's the wood bit below that is cool.  It's called a Squirrel cage Swift.  The wood is gorgeous Sassafras and again, if you want one let me know, I'll put you onto Ron.

So back to what I am up to atm.  Very busy spinning that white loveliness above but also I have a knit I have finished and one in progress.  I hope to one day do a book of patterns and wool information and these two patterns will be in it.

First, my lovely slouchy hat with lace band.  Wool is Merino/Bamboo/Nylon blend, mostly used for socks, gifted to me for my birthday by a friend.


The colour was called Wildberries and the yarn is available at Moseley Park Online

And the second number is a hoodie jumper, knitted from the top down.  It is in progress but it's coming along nicely.


Modelled by the recipient, she's very pleased with it.  The colour is Pillar Box Red, the wool is superwash Merino, hand spun by Me.  It's about a chunky.

SOAP SOAP SOAP

The show went well.  Not as well as I would have liked but well enough... Now it's soap I am doing a lot of...Yet another old craft no...