I finally figured out the best name for this color I got with the cochineal. Raspberry. Or rose. But rose might denote a paler color. Anyway, I’ve been very busily working away on the shawl-neck sweater. Here’s what I’ve got so far. Actually, I’ve done more since this picture was taken, but it’ll give you the general idea.
The Beginnings of a Sweater
I’m really pleased with the way it’s turning out. At first I wasn’t sure I like how it looked, but it’s grown on me. I think that it’ll look even better once it’s blocked.
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The Continuing Saga.
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
A little pinker than I’d imagined, but still pretty. It’s hard to keep in mind that this is only the first step. I still have to crochet the sweater! And, interestingly, the color isn’t quite even. I must have not mordanted it properly, or maybe some beetles got stuck in it.
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Through a turn of events I had today off from my usual work, so I decided to go ahead and pre-mordant the merino yarn in preparation for Saturday’s cochineal adventure. This is harder than it sounds because during my research into the field of natural dyeing I discovered that there were hundreds of “perfect, never-fail” recipes—all of them slightly different and some even contradicting each other.
My conclusion is this: get over it and jump in.
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Here are some of the first skeins of the plied merino yarn. Is it not gorgeous? When it came off the swift I had one of those “oooooooohhhhhhh” moments. A moment only equaled to . . . um . . . well, I’ll figure something out.
Five Skeins
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I never thought I could get out of the habit of spinning incessantly, but somehow I managed it while we had company for two weeks. I am now trying to get back in as fast as possible. Here’s the second bobbin-full of merino. That thing is so soft!
Merino Bobbins
And then I pulled the Walking Wheel out from where it had been buried during the visit (it takes up our entire living room, so we had to move it temporarily) and was planning to start in on the alpaca again.
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Note to self: Dyeing takes at least twice as long as you originally planned, so be prepared!
Yes, I’ve had another long day in the kitchen. All I wanted to dye was the Rebecca yarn.
The Finished Yarn!
The dye bottle was supposed to dye two pounds of fiber. I have a pound and a half of yarn. The instruction sheet for Jacquard dyes recommends a half bottle of dye per pound of fabric. I decided to play things safe and put in a half bottle of dye for the pound and a half of fiber. Well, the yarn turned the color I wanted before the solution even got heated up!
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Norwegian is finished! All thirteen ounces of it spun up into six nice skeins. Don’t ask me about the yardage; I don’t know. This yarn is destined for Kool-Aid dyeing (assuming nothing goes wrong), and hopefully it will find a happy home.
It is now sitting on the drying rack, along with as many other yarns as I could fit. The New Year’s Dash worked great, but I wound up with tons of yarn to set the twist in.
And I’ve started on the merino roving. I’m spinning it into a two-ply sport weight, which I will dye a deep shade of red (using cochineal!) and then crochet into a sweater type thing.
Thin Merino
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Not one, but two fiber-related boxes came today! One from Paradise Fibers, the other from Earth Guild. I’m set on fiber for the rest of . . . the winter?
Filled to Overflowing
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The Completed Rebecca Yarn
Ta-da! It’s done. All the work and excitement has transformed into twenty-three ounces of light-worsted/worsted yarn. According to my calculations, that means that only nine ounces of weight washed out with the lanolin. As far as I know, that’s a decent amount. I’ve read that Merino wool loses half of its weight when you wash the grease out. Anyway, I am now trying to decide what color to dye the yarn, and whether to just wing it on the pattern, or look around and see what I can find.
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Look what arrived in the mail! A pile of yarn skeins eagerly waiting to see what color they’ll become. The possibilities are endless.
Blank Yarn Knit Picks
That’s two skeins of merino worsted weight, a skein of merino lace weight, a skein of superwash merino DK weight, and a skein of superwash merino worsted weight. Fun fun fun! I’m eager to try out some new color combinations.
