Voila

And they looked like this before they went into the oven (see the one on the right). I’ll wait for the collective gasp of horror to dye down. Oh, I mean “die” down. (Can you say, “one track mind”?)

As far as I know they’re still usable. They squished down like that when I squeezed the extra water out. I know silk can felt in some way or another, but I’m not sure if it can felt to itself, or just to some other fiber. Anyway, here are some things I learned.

1) Pre-soak the silk at least overnight. No quick thirty minute deals here. Thankfully a very good friend told me about this ahead of time. And as a fun game, when you first put the water in with the silk, the silk floats, so you can send ripples through the silk by swishing the water.

2) If you pour the dye mix on top of the silk, it stays there. Hence the two color look. I’m used to wool, where you pour it on and it soaks right through. No such thing with silk! I’m going to have to lift it up and pour the dye under it as well.

3) If you forget to add the vinegar before you pour the dye, don’t worry. Just mix up a second solution of dye and put in twice as much vinegar. (Through the whole process I was trying to go easy on the vinegar because I’ve heard that too much can damage the silky shine.)

4) Hot silk smells like fish sticks. Old ones. Or, if you prefer another member of the household’s opinion, it smells like baking worms. Not that I know what a baking worm would smell like. (I wonder, can you spin them?)

5) When the silk comes out of the oven . . . wait a minute, did I just think about spinning worms?

6) Anyway, when the silk comes out prepare yourself for a mild heart attack. I squeezed the extra water out of the silk and almost hit the floor. (Witness, the above pictures.)

I’m still waiting for it to dry thoroughly before attempting to spin it. It seems to fluff up fairly well if I gently pull it apart, but we shall see. Thankfully this was tussah silk that I got at a discount at the fiber festival. (Eight ounces for $13!) So I’m not flipping out over a possible mistake. And I’m actually willing to try it again! Maybe after some more research, but I’m up for the challenge.

The Sanguine Gryphon has lots of beautiful stuff. But this particular batt told me I was taking it home. No arguments.

The Gawain Batt

Oh, and I also happened to pick up this phenomenally red roving.

The Flamenco Braid

This place is definitely going on my “favorite places to get gorgeous fiber” list.

My dad and I stopped to talk to a gentlemen who was demonstrating the Strauch Drum Carders. He was a very nice man, and he explained the drum carding process very clearly. I came away from that knowing that if I ever get a drum carder, I’m getting a Strauch. The biggest reason is the “licker in” part. His is designed so the fiber won’t get caught in it. Now I just need an excuse to get it. Hmm.

Anyway, then we went to the Earth Guild place, and I bought some natural dye stuffs! A couple ounces of Cochineals, Indigo, and Cutch. (And, of course, a mordant and some stuff to make the indigo do its thing.) I can hardly wait to use them. The cutch makes a really pretty tan color on silk, and you know what indigo looks like. It was nice to be able to buy the dye stuff in smaller quantities. Instead of paying an arm and a leg I can get in with a finger.

And the best part? I’d been looking for undyed silk hankies and they had some. More silk to play with!

Silk Hankies

I bought a pound of nice roving from Steam Valley Fiber Farm, and eyed some of their dyed fibers and yarns. One of the yarns had little loops coming out from it, almost like a boucle. I tried to recreate it the other day and failed miserably. I’ll have to keep puzzling over that one.

Here’s the fiber. It’s really soft and “squishy” feeling. I almost wish I’d gotten more, then I could have dyed it all in one go and made a sweater out of it. Oh well. We’ll have fun together.

Wool Roving

During the initial walk through of the first building I had spotted a place that I recognized from online. Little Barn. It had a sign up saying 10% off if you paid with a check. Am I going to argue with 10% off? There wasn’t a lot of gorgeous fiber, but there was a good variety and some really nice stuff.

Wool Silk Blend

And then they had a nice little package of natural wool roving. I thought it would work well for dyeing purposes. It’s not as nice and soft as some of the other things I got, but it’ll do.

Wool Roving

Natural Tussah Roving

Then, when the gentleman was ringing my order up, I saw a $5 package of cotton samples. I’d wanted to try cotton on a tahkli spindle, so I thought it would make a nice beginner package. Thirteen different kinds or colors of cotton.

Cotton Samples

I had seen a whole wall of rainbow-dyed silk during the first walk through, and after I had bought stuff at Gwenyth Glynn and Whorling Tides, I headed back toward the Bullen’s Wullens booth. They had some amazing shades of color. It was hard to pick just one! (The silk came in larger packages. I can’t remember now if it was eight ounces or four. It’s a good size.) But I settled on this one.

The Winner

I can hardly wait to try spinning it. I’ve never done pure silk before.

Then while I was checking out, this bag of wool jumped into my arms.

The Dyed Wool Top

I don’t know what I’ll spin it into. It looks almost coppery to me, with a little malachite thrown in. Maybe a light worsted? No, the color doesn’t look very delicate to me. Hmm. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

The next place I stopped was Whorling Tides. She had some beautiful, beautiful stuff. I walked past, glanced into the booth and saw this.

Merino Bamboo Blend

Two 1 1/2 ounce Batts

Actually, I was only going to buy one of the batts. They were six dollars apiece, and I figured I would ply the one with something else. While the lady was checking me out I asked if she had any straight bamboo roving. (That was one of the fibers that I wanted to get and try.) She said that she did, and she pulled this out of a bin down underneath the shelf.

Bamboo Roving

Here’s a link to her blog.

The first place I bought wool from I had stopped to look at an overflowing basket of gorgeous, shiny, curly, white wool locks. Next thing I knew the owner was right next to me. She was such a nice lady, and she told me all about the Wensleydale sheep she has (Wensleydales are native to England) and how nice their fleece is. Believe me, you could see how nice the fleeces were. All it took was one touch.

It’s got some very fluffy characteristics to it. Rather reminiscent of mohair or angora goats. I bought two balls of wool roving—one had more Wensleydale in it than the other. You can see the “fuzz” difference in the picture. The fuzzier one in the front had more Wensleydale. Both balls are really soft.

Roving Balls

Then I got some locks of wool that had been in a washing accident and felted up a bit. I’m going to spin them in with some singles for a thick and thin sort of yarn.

Wensleydale Locks

I was quite pleased with the prices, too. Here’s a link to her website: Gwenyth Glynn Wensleydales

Her daughter was there plying some yarn on a double treadle wheel. I’m not sure what kind it was, but she let me try it. It was so smooth! And it was weird using the two foot pedals. It felt like I had to work twice as hard to get the twist into the yarn. I was plying from two spools sitting over at my right, and the strands coming off of them kept tangling around each other. One of the ladies watching suggested that I put one of my legs between the two singles. It worked wonderfully.

Nobody panic; I still like my antique wheel. It has a character all its own. In fact, I’m now second guessing changing the milk paint color when we get it all tightened up. So many hard decisions.

The Whole Kaboodle

And I got all of that from only seven vendors. Seven out of the many many many that were there. Of course, I looked up all the vendors ahead of time to find out which ones had stuff I was interested in. I walked into the fair with a list of what I wanted, and basically threw it out the window. I had wanted to get lots of different kinds of fiber, but that approach doesn’t work in this scenario. Unless you want to go through and ask each vendor, “Do you have bamboo? Do you have flax? Do you have bison?”

We (my dad and I) decided to scoop the loop first and make sure I knew where I wanted to buy from. I was starting to get worried when I wanted to buy stuff from the first two booths we stopped at, and there was a whole room full and another building to go. Thankfully the good stores kind of thinned out. (“Good” in terms of fiber I wanted. They were all great.)

Oh, and the people from Wauka Farm were there, so we got to say hello and talk for a bit. And a couple of the ladies from the spinning guild were there too.

Once we had looked at everything, I started buying.

Half of the Haul

The angora bunnies that were there were very cute. And soft. When I felt one’s fur it was like touching soft nothingness. We didn’t stop to look at the alpacas, but I made the mistake of feeling an alpaca fleece in the fleece sale arena. It was a rich black fleece (or whatever you call it when it comes off an alpaca) and they were selling it for three dollars an ounce. I really really had to work on myself to not grab the whole bag and spend all my money in one swoop. The funny thing? I don’t think I ended up buying any alpaca at all! Unless there’s some in the mystery batts . . . hmm.

The fair was very much worth the drive. I got to look at all sorts of gorgeous colors and touch all sorts of wonderful soft fuzzy things. Not to mention talk to some fun people and try out a double-treadle spinning wheel.

And here’s the other half.

More Good Stuff

It’s a three hour drive there, so we’ll be making a pretty good day of it. Assuming I don’t faint from fiber overload I’ll be able to tell you about it tonight, but if worse comes to worst I’ll write about it tomorrow afternooon. Assuming I can tear myself away from the spinning wheel long enough.