Snail Spirals

In anticipation of my carder arriving on Wednesday (THREE DAYS!), I decided to get a whole pile o' wool ready. I got out Buttercup's fleece and the dye last night, and had lots of fun creating a beautiful variety of greens. I worked in 100-gram batches of wool, and dyed in the mesh bags I use for washing. I've found this works very well for ease of handling the wool without felting or messing up the locks too much.



I decided that I want a green sweater, but not a flat monotone green. Using more than one color, or even more than one shade of a single color, gives a much more interesting yarn. The first batch I dyed was straight Spruce.



The next batch was a 2:1 mix of Spruce:Emerald.



I decided both these were more blue than I want for my sweater, but they will look nice carded in with the rest of the greens.

The third batch was 2:1 Spruce:Sun Yellow.



The fourth was 1:0.5:1 Spruce:Sun Yellow:Brown.



And the fifth was 0.5:1:0.25 Sapphire:Sun Yellow:Black.



There is some color variation within each batch, due to the natural variation of grays in the fleece, which ranges from pearly light gray to lightish charcoal. It looks somewhat blotchy now, but I think it will give a fabulous depth to the finished yarn.

After I did those five, I paused to evaluate. Actually, I paused to go to bed. I was so involved in dyeing Buttercup and washing Herkel (more on that in a minute), that I was shocked to look at the clock and see that it was 3:30am. Oops. Off I went to bed.



This morning, in real light, I evaluated. Numbers 1 and 2 are too blue. They will be accent colors. Number 3 is very very nice, and is a keeper. Numbers 4 and 5 also good, and are quite close in color, despite being very different mixes. I'll use Number 4, and I think it will combine very well with Number 3 as the base color for my yarn.

So, I'll dye most of the rest of the fleece with Numbers 3 and 4. I'm also going to dye 100g batches in bright chartreuse green, dark red, and black, as accent colors to blend in along with the blues I did last night.

So, that was last night. While the dyes were going, I also worked on Herkel's fleece. I didn't get all the grease out when I washed the fleece the first time, and consequently it was impossible to comb. The first two bags I washed combed up fine, so I think I may have gotten paranoid about felting it, or tried to do too much at once or something. Anyway, I've been unable to comb any more wool because it's just too sticky. I got it out last night intending to wash 100 grams, enough to ply with what I have already spun, but then I got on a roll and ended up washing the whole thing. It's not completely dry yet, but I can already tell it's much better. Once it's dry, I'll weigh out 100 g and set that aside to comb for the cobweb shawl project. I figure 200 g of yarn should spin up somewhere in the neighborhood of 4400 yards, if I keep going as fine as I have been. That should be enough for whatever shawl I end up designing, but I may set aside an additional 100 g, just in case. I decided to card the rest. Actually, I'll card one batt and see how it goes. This is very fine, crimpy wool, so if it gets neppy on the carder, I'll comb the whole thing.



So I started out with a dye evening, and washed wool to fill in the time when the dyes were cooking. The wool has to soak while it's washing, though, so I still had time on my hands. I put Season One of Battlestar Galactica (which my brother-in-law was kind enough to addict me to hook me on introduce me to over Christmas) on the DVD player and picked open some Border Leicester/Romney roving that sat way too long in its bag and was partially matted and didn't draft well.



I got this wool last summer, in Friday Harbor, from a spinning friend who was destashing. It's local Friday Harbor wool, from Shepherd's Croft, the farm of another spinning friend. I've spun one bobbin full of singles already (that ball in front), and while it came out OK,



the slight matting and difficult drafting made it less than fun. So I'm picking the roving open and will send it through the carder (THREE DAYS!!). I'm aiming for a sweater-weight 3-ply yarn with this, and may possibly combine it with the Tunis I spun a year ago. Each is only 8 oz, but if I get another pound or so of a coordinating wool to tie them together, it will work for a sweater. Maybe I'll contact Annette at Shepherd's Croft and buy a piece of one of her white fleeces next spring, and dye it.

Oh, and that gorgeous basket up there? I picked that up yesterday in Portland after taking Shaun to the airport. We went to Goodwill for a couple pairs of long pants that actually fit Emma's fast-growing self, and there it was: a sturdy wood slat basket with leather handles, reinforced top and bottom edges, and a removable cloth liner, for a dollar! It's 15 inches in diameter and 9" tall. I got the basket, three pairs of pants, a skirt, a dress, and three shirts for Emma, three shirts for me, four Handwoven magazines, a hardcover Harry Potter book, a kid's book and little dolly for Emma, a DVD, and a brand new L.L. Bean backpack bookbag with the tags still on. All for about $50. I love thrift stores.