Dyeing to be yarn

A few months ago I bought 400g of undyed merino fibre to try my hand at dyeing.  It took me a while to be brave enough to actually try it but I have finally taken the plunge.  I’m not sure why I was so apprehensive, I had visions of coming out with a horrible felty mess but I did a bit of reading up to see how to avoid that and still I put it off.  Now I’ve finally got on and done it I think my biggest worry is that I’ve dyed something that looks perfectly fine, but it is only after it is spun and plied and knitted I’ll be able to truly tell if I did a good dye job.  Obviously the same is true with dying yarn, but without the extra (rather time consuming) step in there.  I guess this is something that will come with practice and I probably need the odd disaster to help me learn.  However, here is how dyed my fibre.

I’ll keep you posted with the progress of the yarn, so that if it turns out to be really fugly you can disregard any dyeing advice I may have given!

Spinning Wednesday

Just a quick post today as I have done next to no spinning this week.  So without further ado.....

I'm well along on my third spindle full of the sparkly BFL.  After making a plying ball out of the first and second spindle full I've decided to just keep adding to that ball until all the fibre is gone and ply it all in one go.  I did test ply a little bit of it and was really pleased with the results.

It's nice and soft and ever so slightly sparkly (believe it or not!)I'm really looking forward to having it all done.

I've also started spinning the merino/bamboo/soybean I got a couple of weeks back.  I've not done much but it is spinning nicely, it makes a strange sort of sound when I draft it a bit like paper tearing but very quiet.  It's interesting, but not off putting.  I've split the top into four and I'll be making 4-ply with it.

Well that's it folks, next week I should have a new spindle and therefore a new project on the go.

Stress

I'm not one for stress, I don't enjoy it and I don't thrive off it like some so I try not to do it.  Yesterday the world seemed to have other ideas and I'm stressed about being stressed about things I don't want to stress about.  Marvellous.  However, while all around me were demanding answers about wedding cakes and cars and flowers and all manner of other matrimonial fripperies I had new fibre to play with.  Thank heaven for sheep.....and Etsy!  Cue terrible phone pics - I really need to find the cable to charge my camera!

So pretty...this is a merino and tencel blend which is so soft and smooth I kind of want to sleep on it and the colours are just irresistible.

This is BFL with sparkles, I've only spun merino so far so I thought I'd give BFL a go and these colours are fantastic - even if they do remind me of a shell suit I have in the 80s.  These are both by Daniela of FeltStudioUk and I can heartily recommend her.  The braids came so quickly and she has so many colours to choose from, plus she slipped this in my package too:

I don't know what fibre this is and I would never choose greens to buy, but it is so lovely that I started to spin it immediately - despite needing to finish plying the sparkly pink merino.  Oh well, I guess the heart wants what it wants - and right now any distraction can only be a good thing.

Good Thing no.5

I nearly changed the title of this post because every time I look at it I get Mambo no. 5 stuck in my head (the Lou Bega version, anyone remember this?)  Anyways..moving on!  Yesterday I hinted at some luvverly new fibre I have acquired:

On the left is some super dooper brightly coloured merino top and on the right is some wonderful sparkly bits which I will be adding to everything I spin with gay abandon from now on.  Both from Shunklies Etsy shop.  This was my first foray into buying on Etsy and it was a pleasure - although I'm kinda wishing I'd never looked now because there is sooo much stuff I want on there.  I'm going to hold off on spinning the top for a little while until I can decide exactly how I want it, but I have spun some of the sparkle into this candyfloss pink.

You can't really see the sparkle in a photo, but it is there and it makes the magpie in me very happy indeed.

Ooooh, is that for me?

5 minutes before I left for work yesterday (and about 5 minutes after I should have left for work yesterday) a knock on the door signalled the arrival of the postman with 5 parcels.  I only had time to establish that 2 of them were for me, 1 from Texere and the other from Fabric Rehab, before I scurried out of the door.  Unsurprisingly I spent most of my working day willing it to be 5 o'clock so I could get home and get into the contents of those parcels.  So the second thing I did after closing the front door ( the first was feeding the cats who were apparently STARVING judging by the volume of the miaowing) was dive straight in.

Look, a big pile of colourful potential! I love that all of these were speculative purchases - I have no firm plans for any of it so I'm looking forward to a good few hours of looking at patterns and colour combinations and dreaming of all the possibilities.

These are 2 very different sets of mixed merino top from Texere.  Looking at these I am very clearly a person of light and shade.  I love splashes of bright colour, but I do enjoy darker colours especially blacks and greys.  I guess this is what stops me looking like a clown on a daily basis.  Anyway, I think this little selection satisfies any colour whim I might have for a while.

All of the fabric I purchased from Fabric rehab, however, is a touch on the less subtle side.  Plain colours and simple patterns are relatively easy to find so I was looking for something a bit different.  There are certainly some unusual prints here that will be perfect for bags and as accents on garments.  I'm sure you'll agree that I have plenty to keep me busy here and hopefully plenty of news for my next post!