Charleen's Fiberblog

I Didn't Just Fall Off a Turnip Truck

Yeah, send the fleece to you. Good try!

I carded and combed a sample of the white coopworth lamb. It spins like a dream and I could see no noticeable difference between the two preps, so carding will be easier. I think I'm going to spin this all before dyeing. As pretty and glossy as it is, I don't really need another sweater that can't touch my skin. Too bad I've never done tapestry, because this is crying out to be woven. Hmm, I did have a private lesson in cut pile in the SOAR parking lot, so that's a possibility too. Maybe I should actually figure that out before I spin.

Now the corrie - that is baby soft and I'm dyeing this before spinning. I started dyeing 200 gram batches of fleece in my oven roaster Saturday night. I sat down with my sample book and picked out some recipes. I thought using 2% DOS would be better since the fleece ranges from almost white to charcoal gray. What I didn't think about was that my samples were done on white 8/2 wool yarn. My dye stocks were a little old, too, so that might have made a difference. Nevertheless, I'm happy with the results.

I did a preliminary run through the Louet roving carder, which has coarsely spaced teeth, to open the locks. Next weekend I'll blend them on the Duncan. I sampled the gold, rust, and blue separately then equal amounts of each blended together. I added varying amounts of the undyed and made little sample skeins and knitted up a few. It's too dark for a good picture of those.

Starting on the left is red orange (25% Washfast Red/75% Yellow), gold (50% Yellow/50% Mustard) it has a greenish tinge to it, blue (30% Bright Blue/70% Mustard) I expected olive according to my samples!, and in front was supposed to be reddish brown (25% Violet/75% Mustard) - what was I thinking dyeing a gray fleece this color? Oh well, it adds to the blend. There's 200 grams of that too, but I wanted to get a picture before it got too dark.

Keep the song suggestions coming! I'm gathering them all and I'll go through them one by one this summer.

Posted by Charleen at May 30, 2005 08:44 PM