Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Complete spinning projects and dye experiments

Not much knitting going on here but some dyeing and spinning.

I finished the fiber needed for the Hush Hush Handspun Hootenanny swap. We had to swap 4 ounces of fiber unspun, 4 ounces of hand spun and goodies as you see fit. The unspun fiber was easy because I have plenty to spare. I wanted to do something special with the handspun, I chose Rambouillet because it's not commercially prevalent and wanted to hand dye it myself.
The spinning was different than what I was used to but after a little experimentation, it spun very well.




The colorway is made from four graduated one ounce segments and 2 plied into the semi-monochromatic "Malachite" yarn.

For some of you this will be a re-run. Mrs. Twisted shared some of this but I will share a few more details. She had an idea for a yarn colorway and I asked her to show me and with some crayons. I took the colors we had and blended them to match the swatch the best I could. The inspiration was pansy inspired.

The base yarn is Henry's Attic superwash merino. I tried three different dyeing styles, the left is all blue and splatter dyed with the plum. The center was dyed blue, steam set and dried. After it was dry I carefully over dyed the dry hank with plum. The right hank was normal space dyed and steam set. The goal was to see the end result in stockinette for future reference.

We liked the center version because it looks like each stitch is a different color sort of like the Araucania brand coloring.

Many of you know me pretty well, I tend to share a lot of my feelings and outlook on life here. some of you may not know I'm left handed. the only reason I even mention that is because Wednesday August the 13th was World Wide Left Handed Day. My son is a lefty too. The only two in all of the extended family. I'm not surprised though, it seems like there is a "world wide xxx day" for everything now. So to you lefties out there high fives all around.

7 comments:

  1. Mom was a lefty; Middlest and my nephew are. Lark is, and I think her sister Willow is, too. Not sure about the Bitties yet.

    Congratulations on being officially in your "right mind". I bought Mom one of those T-shirts from a shop in Fredericksburg, TX when we lived there.

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  2. Oooooh, what pretty pretty fiber/spinning! And I love the little swatches of yarn, it's great to see it knitted up side by side. I agree, I think I like the middle one best too.

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  3. It's all gorgeous!

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  4. Anonymous11:55 AM

    I'm enjoying our little dye experiments. This last one, the Pansy colorway - I'm thinking sweater. Its great to have my very own custom dyer in the house! :)

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  5. My dad and brother are left-handed, too, but my sister and I are both righties.

    My grandma made my dad use his right hand when he was in school so now my dad says that he writes "Equally poorly" with both hands.

    I love the center purple swatch, also. I think I'll try it that way sometime.

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  6. your spinning is so beautiful and even - (I guess that's what happens when you practice!)

    thanks for posting :)

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  7. Your spinning is looking fantastic! It's definitely your thing! And of course I'm partial to the Malachite yarn :)

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