Yarn and Fiber and Dyes

Yes, they do still exist here in Yarnnation!

This was over dyed from yarn that was left over from yarn I dyed a couple of years ago that my Mom knit into a Wonderfy Wallaby for Little Sir.

 

 Now the Lion Baby wear that Wonderful Wallaby, but I thought that he should have his own as well.  What do you say, Grandma?  You up for knitting another one?  Actually I think i may take this one, as I am needing some simple, just follow the pattern and don't think, type of knitting.

Some Superwash Merino that I though I'd throw in while I was at it.  I love how it turned out.  I don't really have a project in mind for it.

This is kind of a strange one.  I've never dyed anything black before, but it was a very dark purple color that I didn't care for.  I was hoping for a "raven" like look, but you can hardly see the purple at all.  It really just looks black.  Oh well, it will be useful for a hat or something.

And last, this was a big bundle of Cooriadale that I half submerged in order to exhaust the dye.  You can see there was still a lot of dye left in the pat.  I love spinning fibers that have a lot of white in them along side a dark color.  I can't wait to see how it spins up. 

And there you go.  Proof that, despite a creative recession, fiber is still of great importance in our house.  (Just ask the poor guys/gals that end up having to move my yarn stash. - Although, probably better that than all of our books.)

A little fiber update while I procrastinate

I should be doing homework. I only have one problem left (that one problem will probably take 20-30 min. - but that's beside the point.) It's just one little problem. :)

Anyway, while I'm procrastinating I thought I'd show you a little of my current stress reduction project. Oh, how I love spinning when I need to relax.

Remember this? (Superwash Merino dyed while my mom was here)



It is now THIS! 2 ply sock weight and very very yummy!



OK, now I will go do my homework (or maybe just a short little nap first. . . ;c)

Royal Dying Day

Last Thursday was dedicated to mass amounts of fiber and dye, two babies, my mom, Sarah and I. It was F-A-N-T-A-S-T-C (and physically taxing- there was a lot of moving heavy water filled pots and running up and down stairs.)


Here is an overview of what we did.

A little something for the Duke.

Superwash Merino for socks.

BFL is our BFF



The Queen picked up some Socks that Rock mill ends a Madrona and dyed them, they turned out amazing!

This was the very ugly Hand Maiden sock yarn that I won in a blog contest. Much better now.

The Queen's other STR. Mmmmmmm.

Enough Patons Merino (originally natural) for a February Lady. (Ravelry link)

And the Queen wanted something bright and fun to knit a Wonderful Wallaby for Little Sir, so we whipped a little something up.

A sweater I bought at a second hand store and frogged. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, but I like it.

I also over-dyed the awful pink sock yarn and the panel of sock yarn. I didn't get good photos of them, but you can see them in the top photo.


Here are the boys. Have you ever seen anything so sweet?

Very Very Busy

The Yarn Queen (aka My Mother) has been keeping me very busy. Much too busy to blog, I guess, which is really too bad because I have a lot of GREAT things to blog about.

We headed down to Tacoma for a fiber fix at Madrona's marketplace. (I think it made my mom a little crazy that we couldn't take any classes.) Little Sir, on the other hand, had a great time running around the market charming the pants off of anyone he could bat and eye at.

The fiber fumes were a little overwhelming. The Queen added six pairs worth of sock yarn to her stash. She is now taking applications for "helper knitters". (She has so many projects that she has planned that she needs more knitters than herself to ever get them done in her lifetime.)

I, on the other hand, walked out of that market place with out even a stitches worth of yarn or fiber. No, my immunity to the fumes has become too strong, so they seem to have mutated to effect me in other ways.

Here is what was in my happy little hand as we walked to the car.



Yes, I appear to have become a little warped. . . (lame, I know- sorry) It's true though. I need another fiber obsession about like I need a herd of elephants in my back yard.


The set up was terribly interesting to me.




And here are my first attempts.


As you can see I'm not very good at it yet. My edges are not smooth and the weaving isn't terribly even, but I like it, none-the-less. My first attempts at weaving are a lot better looking than my first attempts at either knitting or spinning.

Anyway, this is just for practice (I'm thinking of felting it and making a scarf for little sir.) Of course I have some other fabulous projects floating around in my clearly deranged head. I'll keep you in the loop!

And look forward to more posts about the crazy fiber adventures we have been having. Knitting is just the tip of the iceberg!

Dying Desire

I hadn't had my dye pots out for over a year. . . A YEAR! That's not normal, so the Queen and I decided to remedy that problem while she was up.

We mostly dyed fiber, as we were on a spinning high from Oregon Flock and Fiber, but I did throw a little handspun in there.


On the bottom there we have the handspun (BFL) and some Corriedale roving that we threw in one pot with some weld. I really like it, but I've decided that I'm not really into natural dyeing. It takes a long time, and frankly, I'm more into the vibrant colors.
The other two are superwash Merino that I overdyed. I do love overdying. You never know what you are going to get.

This is also some superwash merino leftover from a project that I spun the fiber undyed. (My mismatched stripes handspun socks.) It isn't a lot, maybe 2 oz, but it was fun, because I felt like it was OK if I messed it up, I left quite a bit of white on purpose. I am excited to spin it.

I didn't realize it until just now, but Mernio seemed to be the favorite fiber of the day. The blue and green is Merino. The green/ gold/ black is Targee.

And a llittle bit better view.

Do you notice something unusual about the colors. . . like there is NO RED anywhere in all of it. I decided I needed to expand the color range in my fiber closet. It was kind of hard to stay away from the red, but I am delighted with the colors!

Again, it feels good to be doin' my thing again. Thanks to the Queen for getting me there.

Wow! Fiber. . .

Thank you all for your kind comments about the latest Yarn of Yarnnation. I know it was kind of long, my imagination gets carried away some times. Remember to leave a comment on the last part to be eligible to have the happy fiber come live either in your stash closet or your coat closet (as a hat or fingerless gloves or something.)

Now, as far as newcomers to the stash, some of you might know that The Queen, The Princess, PBTB, and "W" just got back from Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. It wasn't the best trip, as The Princess' gall bladder decided to malfunction big time while we were there, but yarn and fiber were still procured. I was very restrained, though, the closet is getting a little crowded.


This is Sarah Anderson's Great Balls of Fiber- enough for a long sweater. Superwash Merino/Alpaca.


This is what the Princess picked out for me to spin for her. It's also the Merino/Alpaca. I am spinning it into a Navajo plied sock yarn for her.

I was a little dissappointed with Sarah Anderson's selection this year. Not that it wasn't all beautiful, there just wasn't very much of it. I asked her about it and she said that she just hadn't had the time and the weather hadn't cooperated. Ah well, I can't really complain, The Queen and I did a great deal of damage to both our wallets and her inventory!




If you want to see a WHOLE LOT of Socks that Rock, visit the Queen's blog in the next few days. I found her holding dozens of skeins of yarn with a wild, crazed look in her eyes. We had to do some deep breathing to bring her back to her senses. The smell of vinegar can do that, you know. Next time we'll remember the smelling salts.

I was wooed by this one "rare gem" skein. I didn't intend on buying any yarn, but how could I resist this? I mean, really!

And the reason I had no intention of buying yarn. Oh that would have been the previous day's trip to this enchanted little place.


Here you choose strands of any color and fiber your hearts desire and have it spun together onto a cone, ready for use!

If you are a knitter, crocheter, or weaver I suggest you visit as soon as possible. In the mean time, visit their website, where they sell pre-spun cones.


This is a wool/cotton blend that will be a sweater for Little Sir.


This is a wool/nylon blend in a sock weight.


Mohair/wool in lace weight.

Yes, there will be return visits!

Now before I sign off, I want to be sure that you all visit Princess P. to wish her a speedy recovery and also to read all about the BEST NEWS OF THE YEAR!

Last but not least, you can also visit the adoption blog to see pictures of the adorable cousins together.

Did you miss me?

I'm back. I'm mostly recovered from my first post-child quarter back to school. I'll be glad when it's over for good.

I'm on spring break.

I told someone that today, and visions of the not so distant past when my spring break included sun, water, and my boyfriend getting arrested, filled my head and made me laugh.

Truly, I'll happily take this handsome little devil over my "miscreant" old flame.


And while I would LOVE a little sun and water the beautiful people will thank my ghostly white and stretch mark decorated self that instead spinning and knitting occupied my leisure time this spring break.

This


is now this

I'm still working on the second bobbin full. I can't for the life of me remember where or when I bought this lovely stuff, or for that matter, even what it is. It feels like a very nice Corriedale. I think that it is either from The Artful Ewe or from Sarah Anderson of Great Balls of Fiber. I'm thinking that latter is more likely.

I also spun my first cabled yarn. It is constructed of 2 two plyed yarns plyed together in the opposite direction (say that three times fast.) It is very sproingy.

I loved it so much I wanted to knit something out of it right away. (The fiber is super wash merino.)

Little Sir needed a new hat and as it is a FOUR ply yarn, there wasn't much of it so it was a good match.


I am still slogging away on the never ending navy blue stst part of the Duke's SLC 2002 sweater. It has been great for classes. I still have about three inches until I start the colorwork. In between classes though, I've been wanting to do some small fast projects.


This is a sport weight I spun from a beautiful batt I got from High Prairie Fibers
in November of 2006. I was originally planning on spinning it all up in a heavy aran weight for a sweater, but I spun some, knit a swatch and didn't care for it so much in that weight. I love it in this finer weight, and it had finally marinated in my stash long enough. It decided it wanted to be a new pair of fingerless gloves for spring.

And lastly. . .

Little Sir gets another hat. Sarah wanted to see my stranded knitting method and I though I'd also take the opportunity to see if the said method would still work while carrying three colors. So a hat was born. (For those that are interested I hold both- or all- colors in my left hand, alternately dropping and picking up the strands, and yes, it does work with three colors, it's just a little bit fiddily.)
The yarns are bit and pieces from my collection of such. The green is Jeager Extra Fine Merino, the white is Nashua Creative Focus, and the brown in a mystery yarn that I bought in Astoria, OR a few years ago. It's a super wash wool and that's all I know.

I do have one more small FO to show you, but I really want Little Sir to model it, so consider this a little Yarnnation brand suspense.

Now off to bed!

Madrona

What do you get when you put two 4 month old babies and two fiber fanatics into an SUV and drive them to Tacoma for the day?


Chameleon Colorworks Optium (stretched merino- to DIE for soft. It has properties of both silk and wool, and it is machine washable- Amazing) in color way Briar Rose.
(this was a b-day gift from Sarah- thanks Sarah! I'm spinning it now- it's wonderful.)


Crown Mountain Farms Merino in color way "Light My Fire".
This is the same company I purchased the BFL roving from that I spun for this sweater. I loved spinning it, I loved knitting with it, I love wearing it. Recipe for repeat.


And the absolutely unbelievable 70/30 Alpaca Silk from Tactile. They are scheduled to have their website go live on 3 Mar. Until then, you can find them at Stitches West if you are lucky enough to get to go.

Pictures

Behold the future of pharmacy!


It's amazing what you find when you have film developed that's been siting in a camera for three years.



I actually thought my Duke was ageless. Doesn't he look young here? This was pre-second year pharmacy. It aged both of us.




From The Artful Ewe. Merino Wool in an unknown (but delightful colorway) and the "Miss Mavis" batt, whose tag I have all ready managed to loose. I think it is alpaca, mohair, and angora. Lovely!

Also, I've crossed another WIP off my list.

Duke's Aran Sweater
Lil Bro Hat
Headband
Duke's Shadow Scarf
Red Felt Bag
Leg Warmer
Baby Surprise
M. Vest
Striped Felt Bag
Green Sweater
Japanese Lace
Go with the Flo Socks
Mitered Baby Blanket
Silk Rumple Wrap
JD Baby Sweater
W. Baby Sweater
Charlotte's Shawls

I have also made good progress on the Duke's Aran sweater, I am up to the cap shaping on the second sleeve, as well as the Flo socks, I am ready to turn the heel.

Oh, and ultrasound pics (in all their creepy cuteness) as soon as I get around to scanning them. Soon I hope.