I loved every minute of it.

In fact, that’s all the confirmation I need to know that I’m doing what I really want to be doing. Selling fiber and yarn definitely holds enough excitement for me to last as long as God wants me here.

One of those sales was a refilling sale for the local yarn store. They needed more of the wholesale laceweights in certain colors, so I was able to stock them up on those. Here’s a picture of a few of the early colorways we put together. They have since been refined a little bit, and Dawn Treader isn’t pictured, but it’ll give you a general idea.

For the refill, they needed (among other things) six skeins of Dawn Treader. That’s the biggest yarn run in one colorway I have ever done, as of yet. I’ve got a custom Etsy order lined up for eight skeins of Blackberry lace, so that’ll take the record in terms of number of skeins.

I also dyed up my last two braids of Corriedale roving, so be watching for those in the store. One is the fiber version of my new colorway “Ink” (you can see the sock version here), and the other is probably going to be called “Japanese Bridge.” It’s reminiscent of Monet’s famous painting.

I’m discovering that I need to get way more fiber braids in my store ASAP. All the Bluefaced Leicester in Dawn Treader are gone, as are all the other braids I listed at the beginning of the month. I’ve got a bit more of undyed coming in (Wensleydale fiber!) but it’ll be a while before I can place another large fiber order. Hopefully we can hold out long enough.

Between all this order shipping I’ve been working away on a fun spinning project. It’s a llama, silk, and merino (I think) hand spun yarn, and I beaded a portion of it.
This was my first time beading a yarn.

This is called banana silk. It’s derived from the leaves of banana trees, so it’s a plant-based fiber, and you can see how shiny it is in the pictures. I’d heard of yarn that had banana fiber in it, but it had never registered in my noggin that that would mean there was banana spinning fiber floating around somewhere to be pounced on.

I now have a full four ounces of the stuff waiting for me to figure out what to try it in. The individual strands are thick, and the softness is really hard to describe. Almost like a really, really fine elastic. The kind that isn’t wrapped up in thread.

And, if you’re wondering, yes, I bought it on Etsy. And, yes, I am aware that other fiber retail areas exist, but, hey! Why not Etsy? This particular fiber came from ExtremeSpinning – great store, great owner – and she has some really neat stuff in there. In fact, she sent me a fun little sample of some locally carded wool roving. Isn’t it cute?

Sweater! I promised a picture and here it is.

My first knit sweater. Very, very comfy and soft. In fact, so comfy that I’m already plotting to make another sweater. A short sleeve cotton one, actually. I already have the pattern and yarn picked out. I think I’m still on a “start a new project” kick. Thankfully I’ve been able to resist. Even when I couldn’t knit any more on either of my current projects for various reasons.

The Emily Dickinson shawl is coming along nicely, after a small glitch in which I ran out of beads and had to wait a day to get more. The ironic thing is that, now that I’ve got more beads, I’m back into a whole section of the shawl that doesn’t need beads. I believe I’m on row six or seven now, and I’m really happy with the way it’s looking at the moment. I’ve already been toying with the idea of making another version of it without the beads.

And, another batt picture to sign off with, my very favorite of the bunch. The Geiranger Fjord batts…

And I’m making sure! By the end of the first day (Sunday) I had thirteen batts in my possession. And I’ve got lots more fiber to take care of. The first batts remind me of Animal from The Muppet Show. They’re carded from some Romney fiber I hand-dyed in various shades of burgundy and black. Now they’re a little more pinkish.

Then I tried blending two colors of fiber and came up with these. I call them my Robin’s Egg batts.

And then for my own use, I blended up the fibers I got while visiting in Texas. Eight gorgeous batts of a Blue-faced Leicester, baby alpaca, and mohair blend. Amazingly soft and fluffy. Actually, I need to run those through the carder one more time to make sure the fibers are really well blended.

So, after doing all those batts I felt confident enough to try blending colors more artistically. This was my first time doing it, and, in short, it was . . . ah. . . a learning experience. Instead of gorgeous streaks and swirls of colors I wound up with this.

Affectionately known as the wooly mammoth hide batt.

At the time, I wanted to have all this yarn spun up by mid-October, and I still do— (I hear the rustle of calendars as you look at the date. I can dream, can’t I?) It didn’t seem so difficult at the time, but the trouble was that my usual loyal, supportive G. P. Adams & Co wheel was full of silk. And I did not have time to finish spinning that project before I began the indigo. Therefore it was time to try out the two antique spinning wheels that my father bought. Scary scary. Two unknown wheels and a deadline. I started with the one that treadled best.
This poor wheel had literally come to us in pieces and had been put back together by my grandpa. On its maiden voyage (ha ha) it behaved well for a while, then began throwing a fit. And throwing its drive band.

When that didn’t deter me, it decided to snap the single at any and every opportunity, and if it could snap the single about two inches after I had rejoined it, that was even better! Well, I couldn’t sit around and deal with it so I put it in the corner to think over its attitude and got out the other wheel.

This wheel is beautiful, and possibly English. I’ve always been somewhat partial to its looks — perhaps that’s why the other was being nasty — but this one has brass knuckles. It literally has a metal rim around the inside of the big fly wheel. It must be iron or something, and it’s quite thick, which means heavy, which means greater leg power in the treadling. (I’ve literally spun my leg into a big muscle ache before, so you can understand my trepidation.)

However, I have now spun almost two whole bobbins full and it is behaving beautifully. The only time the single snaps is if I do something ridiculous, like not putting in enough twist. It seems the pretty wheel has won the day! (But the other wheel is not forgotten. It’s rather like a horse that needs to learn how to behave itself. I have a feeling, once all the kinks are straightened out, that it will be a fine wheel.) (Did you hear that, wheel? So behave yourself.)

And you know what the most exciting part about this is? This is my first ever bobbin full. Yes, I’ve been spinning for over a year now (gasp), but this is my first full bobbin. The other wheel doesn’t have a fully functional bobbin, which means I can’t fill it to its full capacity. So here, I give you, my first totally full bobbin. And it’s indigo merino! How perfect is that?

This is the skein of heavy worsted I spun on the drop spindle. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, which is unfortunate because I love the color. I dunked it in the dye only once, so it’s relatively light in color and actually has a little variegation going on.

So far the indigo doesn’t appear to be crocking. Hooray hooray. Dye leaks are something that occurred with dismal regularity during the cochineal dyeing. Which reminds me, yet another reason to like indigo dyeing is that it doesn’t smell bad like cochineal. It does have a strongish smell, but nothing like dead beetles with vinegar in them. (How’s that for ruining your yarn appetite? )

Here is another skein that I dunked three or four times. I think three. It’s one of the three Iowa fleece skeins I spun on the Walking Wheel.

And here is its sibling. This one went in only twice. The third skein of this kind was occupied with some other stuff I’ll show you anon. Let me just say that I knew I would have a longish wait for the indigo to simmer, so I planned on pulling out some Jacquard dyes.

Once I dyed those three skeins, I was still itching to use up any particles of blue that might be floating around in the dye water, so I pulled out my big basket of washed fleece and stuffed some into a presoak. Then I had a brainwave. I had cochineal dyed fleece lurking in the bottom of the basket. Red plus blue equals . . . get that stuff in the dye bath now!

I wound up with these lovely colors. The dark purple and light purple, and two shades of plain blue. (Of course, when you’re dealing with indigo, “just plain blue” can still knock your socks off.)

The only trouble I had with the whole affair was when I put the darker red into the dye bath. I hadn’t done a very good job of rinsing it out after the initial dye all those months ago. The indigo water went orangey. But it didn’t seem to affect the actual indigo at all! Amazing.

I can hardly wait to do this dye again. It was so easy, and now that I know I can get shades from denim to the palest blue, I think I’ll have to make a skirt and dip dye it in a light-to-dark pattern.

A Lengthy Swatch

And, while wandering about the house I decided to give cotton spinning a try. Here are the results. It spun easier than I thought it would, but until you get plenty of twist into it you’d better not pull on it at all. It snaps very easily. I’ll have to play with it some more. The cotton yarn would make great washrags.

Cotton Three-Ply

The Final Assortment

I’d say it was almost worth all the effort. I say “almost” because I’m still sick, and there’s a long rinse job ahead of me. Supposedly, if you let the newly dyed yarn sit for a day or two before rinsing, it helps solidify the color. It also lets a lot of color stay there, waiting for the innocent dyer to come by and try rinsing it. One skein of the Rebecca wool dunked into a pot of water twice. Water went red. Sigh.

But, on a good note, with all the dye flinging about all day, the only known casualty was my sock.

One Little Spot

Oh, and as a warning, adding vinegar to the bath makes great colors, but it adds a very unpleasant odor to the beetles, which were on the edge already. In short, it stunk up the kitchen. We had windows open and fans running for the last hour or so.

Everything is now in the “let dry” stage, waiting for me to pluck up the courage to get back to work. It shouldn’t take too long. The yarn calls.

Wow

The first batch of wool came out a sort of mauve color. And the bag seemed to have worked!

Darker Fleece

Pink Fleece

Because the pink color was so light (and it cooked for the full forty minutes!) I was sure it had practically exhausted, and I still had some yarn I wanted to dye. It’s the last of the Daisy fleece, spun into a two ply on the Walking Wheel. Actually, it’s almost the last. I had only plied two of the four skeins before I started dyeing, so in-between switching out yarns I plied for my life . . . but only got three of the four done.

Anyhow, I didn’t want them to turn into an even paler shade of pink, so I did some poking around and found out that you can mess with the color of the dye by adding vinegar. So I did. Look what I got!

Plum Colored

Cranberry Laceweight

And the water was still red. In went some random roving with more vinegar. Out came a . . . I’m not really sure what to call this color.

Romney Mix Roving

Everything was going well. The yarn was in, it had already turned pinkish, then I decided to give it a gentle stir to make sure it was getting evenly soaked. Up comes a section of yarn mingled with beetle parts! There was nothing for it but to keep going and plan on rinsing and picking them out later. Ugh. But, on a brighter note, after a good forty minutes of simmering—possibly an hour, I don’t remember exactly—look what came out of the pot!

Red Red Red

While this had been cooking I pre-soaked a batch of clean fleece to pop in afterward. There was quite a bit of red left in the water and I wanted to use it up. I was a little leery about just chucking the fiber in and trying to get it back out of the pot without felting it, so I grabbed some old tulle and whipped up a little mini-mesh bag that I could pitch later if it got stained.

Instant Bag

Off to a rip-snorting start.

So, after some thought and trying to decide whether I really wanted to do this, I plunged ahead. (Now, you have to understand, I literally had a bad dream about doing this a couple nights ago, and a wonderful sinus infection to deal with.)

I started with the cochineal. You can either use them whole, grind them up, crush them slightly, or convert them into powder. My method? Stick the little beetles into a ziploc inside a bigger ziploc, set on the concrete outside and dance. Actually, it was more like a controlled kicking and grinding than dancing, but it crushed them up a bit. They were a lot harder than I imagined, and rather small. It would take three to be the size of a Tic-Tac.

Then I put them in a jar with boiling water to sit and soak until I was ready for them. This (and the crushing) supposedly helps you get as much color as you possibly can. They didn’t smell too bad; rather like fish food. This picture is from a later step, but you can see the wonderful color the water turned.

Soaking Beetles

While they were steeping I hauled the mordanted yarn down to the woods and commenced triple-rinsing, just to make sure all the extra chemicals were off. Assuming there were extra chemicals. This lowered the temperature of the yarn, so I had to try and bring it back up to at least room temperature before it went into the simmering dye water.

And, speaking of dye water, it turned a lovely red, but remind me never to just dump in the ground beetles again. The recipe said you could swirl a piece of fleece around in there and it would catch all the little bits. Well, I went through three handfuls of wool (see above photo) and there were still some beetles doing the backstroke through my liquid. (That last bit was what you call “poetic license.” They were not swimming around.) This was after simmering the beetles for twenty minutes.

Dye Froth