Blue blue blue 2

I plied up the first 2 oz ball of roving and love the yarn this colorway made. The picture shows the colorway a little darker than the yarn actually is. I'm still playing with color quality in the house.
The yarn came out really soft, which has me a bit worried. The yarn is slotted to become a pair of socks, so I'm worried about wear. I'll have to wait and see. It's lovely though and will be appreciated by my loved one. Can't say who, but the colorway reminds me of her. Off to spin the rest of the my second roving ball!

blue blue blue

My first roving is spun up. I hope to ply tonight, but here are some pictures of the roving and the singles on the bobbin. The picture of the bobbin is a bit blurry, but the color is close to real life.
I'll post more when I finish more. I love this fiber and plan on buying some more superwash merino roving.

Hectic week

I hope to have some pictures posted tomorrow (or Friday) of some luscious superwash merino wool I am spinning. I love this stuff. So wonderful to spin and touch. I dyed the merino a few weeks ago in a blue colorway. My hope is there is enough fiber there (4 oz) for me to spin yarn for socks for a loved one. According to some friends, 4 oz is all I need for socks. The loved one has small feet, so maybe even less, but we'll see.

This week has been very hectic at work and at home, so no knitting, spinning, or even reading. Not even when I am done with my regular job. You see, I stepped in for a lecture professor who had a death in the family. Was I prepared to step in? Well, sort of. I've lectured in the past and there are planned lectures in the future since the prof will be out of town on a few class days. But, on such short notice? I was game, that's for sure, and I tackled the lectures head on. However, I am very relieved I will go back to doing one job only after today, and this means I can spin and do whatever I want later today at home. Wheee!

You see, today is the last lecture I will do this week. I've learned a lot and my course lecture notes are longer which is great. Now, if I just had the time to finish the rest of my lecture notes for a future course . . .

Fiber pictures tomorrow and wheel pictures too as my little Ashford Traveller is going to be replaced by a beautiful Majacraft Rose. I'm just waiting for the new wheel to come in the mail.

Happy fibering!

Dyeing Gone Kaput . . .

Robin and Friends,
In anticipation of knitting a shawl with the Mystery Shawl Along 2 group, this past weekend I dyed some merino lace yarn, Regina from Grignasco (a very old purchase). The yarn was originally a cream color, and anyone who knows me knows I am a klutz. Sigh, alas, any clothing in light colors gets dirty sooner (usually) or later. So, I decided to dye the yarn. Only, how to dye it?

I consulted with Robin, who is very busy right now with school and kindergartners. She and I discussed rainbow dyeing the yarn, wrapping the yarn, and then steaming it. No, I thought the colors would be too strong. My goal was a lovely subtle hued blue and pale lavender yarn. Note the word "goal" in that sentence. We discussed diffuse dyeing in the pot and decided that would work best.

The previous night I had wound the two part skein into a single long skein, much to my husband's amusement. How many boxes does it take to get a longer length than my niddy noddy? Well, apparently quite a few. I was quite amusing. Just ask my hubby. Sigh, the things we do for our craft. I have since decided that I should just break down and invest in a third, yes, I said third, niddy noddy. I decided the niddy noddy from NKK (Nancy's Knit Knacks) would work well as it is adjustable from 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 yds, but you also can use it to make a 27 inch sample, so that is in my future plans. But back to my dyeing session or would that be sessions!

Alright, I had the yarn in the pot (left picture) and I added my dyes (right picture). But I didn't see much color difference and I didn't like the streaking that was happening. I know I had some lavender in there, some light blue, and some darker blue, but do you see that? Not really, just the light and darker blue!

Unhappy with the colors and the streaking, I threw in some more blue dye, so now I was pot dyeing, no longer diffuse dyeing. Oh well, that's life. So, what does the yarn look like. Well, while dyeing I also learned to mix the dyes well. And I mean, don't just shake for a minute, shake several minutes. Let the dye settle and shake again because some reddish/purple came out in a blob and left my yarn a bit more pinkish purple in one section. You can see my mistake near the second tie from the top. And no, you can't dye over that to get rid of it. At least not and have a yarn light enough to see a lace pattern. I still have my doubts about the color of the yarn and what lace will look like, but we'll see as we knit.

Do you see the streaks still in the yarn, or the white areas where the ties are? I do. Do I like the yarn? Not sure. I have a hypothesis about those white tie areas. The ties weren't tight, so what happened. I had two different types of ties on there, two ties were wool and two ties were cotton. The area near the cotton didn't get dyed, but the area near the wool ties did dye. Is there a correlation? All I know is no more cotton ties for me, unless dyeing cotton!

I also learned that although I love using this method of dyeing for roving, I don't enjoy the results for yarn. If I want yarn dyed in subtle colors, I will rainbow dye it in the future.

This weekend I also dyed some mohair locks to make some boucle yarn. I love the colors, except for the salmon colored locks. Those locks won't go with the yarn I am planning, but they can be used in another project.
Stay tuned for the finished boucle yarn. Hopefully worked up this weekend, but we'll see. Happy fibering everyone!

Storage anyone?

This weekend was pretty busy Robin. Other than being really sick, I worked on a few projects. First, I plied up some lovely blue yarn. The yarn was originally spun on a drop spindle, but I plied it on the wheel over the weekend and set the twist with a hot water bath. I wanted the yarn plied fast, hence the use of the wheel instead of my drop spindle. I'm very happy with the way it looks and feels. I think the yarn is slotted to be the center of some boucle yarn, but we'll see. I have 1 oz more of this to spin up on the drop spindle, and then I will finally decide what I want to do with it.

What else did I do this weekend? Well, I recently got a new desk because my laptop and I had problems with the old desk. The desk wasn't made for a laptop! The laptop was, um, practically in my lap instead of on the desk. I know, I know, laptop has the word "lap" in it, so doesn't it sit on the lap? Not when it is a desktop replacement computer that will get really really hot! So, new desk.

I've needed a new desk for a while now, about 3 years. I'm also a tad on the petite side and get cramps in my legs because the old desk was too high for me. I have this problem at work too and have a footrest to correct this issue. But at home, I wanted a desk that was completely height adjustable. In the past I used a small throw as a footrest. So, for my anniversary my husband bought me a new desk. Isn't he sweet?

We bought an IKEA desk, one of their Galant workspace series desks. I'm not even going to try to link to the address for my desk (long link). It's lovely. While visiting my family in CA, my hubby and I stopped at one of the local IKEA stores and found what desk we wanted for me. It's completely height adjustable and I have it on what D calls "midget height". He keeps teasing me that toddlers can use my desk. I'm not that petite, but hey, he likes to pick on me.

Anyways, with the new desk I lost some paper space atop the desk shelf. So, I decided to sew myself up a small hanging storage piece for my extra papers and CDs, or cords. I'll try to post a How to/Pattern soon, but here's a picture of my small fabric storage unit. I'm hoping to make another one for the wall behind my laptop.

Alright that's it for me. Oh wait, I also spun up the rest of the dratted raspberry fiber. Now, to ply that this week before spin night!
Happy fibering all,