A Beautiful Weekend

I've been busy dyeing for weeks. This Saturday my friend Carolyn and I participated in a small sheep and wool festival. It was a beautiful event. Though the morning threatened rain, the sun came out by noon and it couldn't have been nicer.

Lots of people showed up, family dogs in tow, girls in long flowy dresses and skirts, ladies sporting hand-crafted hats, shawls, sweaters and scarves. There were men in kilts and weavers in pioneer wear. Re-enactments of sheep trials, bagpipe music, and sheep shearing, spinning and weaving were among the activities and demos. And, of course, food and crafts for kids.

I have to say that the quality of the vendors was superb, from authentic Scottish tartans to Cormo fleece I wanted to roll around in, to hand hooked, crocheted, and woven wool rugs, and of course hand-dyed yarns and rovings. All with the Hudson River gleaming in the background. And can I just say, thank God for Zyrtec!

I forgot my camera. I always must forget something, so this wasn't such a bad thing to forget considering. But my booth-mate Carolyn took some photos before the fair was open to the public and posted them on her blog. By the way, her handspuns were flying out of there. But she will list what's left in her etsy shop. You can't pet them online of course, but I will tell you that there were constant ooohs and ahhhs emanating from those that did Saturday!

Fleece of Many Colors

Remember this?Well I washed it (something I will never do again as it took hours, countless gallons of water, and a toll on my knees....and I can have it done at a fiber mill for $5/pound!) and it came out like this:
Then I spent over a week picking out hay and seeds and such. (Well, I've still got about a pound to go!) Here are a few picked locks:
Teased, you can see the nice crimp:By the way, this stuff feels like a cross b/w bunny fur and baby hair. It's very pleasant to work with.

Next step, dye the locks different colors:So far I have dyed the purple you see above, red, blue, green and yellow locks. To dye, I place the locks in mesh lingerie bags and immerse in my crockpots, just as when I dye roving and top.

So now what? Here's the really fun part....I've been combing the different colors together! Here is how it works....

First, combs are spiky, sharp things. If you note some small holes in my thumb and fingers, this is why. Combs work in sets of two. I'm using small combs I have borrowed from the spinning guild. One comb is clamped to the table (that's our kitchen table, which now serves as dye workbench, combing station, and, soon, carding station!) The free comb is used in a motion first perpendicular to the stationary comb, then parallel to it. In the process the fiber is transferred from the stationary comb, to the moving comb, and back again, as many times as necessary to blend the fibers sufficiently.

There is an excellent tutorial on combing here at Red Stone Yarns, and I couldn't explain it any better than that! But, just in case that's not enough for you, there are some pdf tutorials here on the Majacraft site. Oh, and I'll say one more time...combs are sharp things.

First the locks are "loaded" onto the stationary comb: (I doubt this is the origin of "locked and loaded" but it could be!)Combing purple locks:Comb is moving left to right. Note fiber beginning to accumulate on moving comb.

Once all fiber has transferred to moving comb, it is combed vertically (though the moving comb remains held with tines to the side), transferring all fiber back to the stationary comb. Below, see the nice, fluffy, combed purple fiber.
Now I repeated with yellow locks:And ended up with two fluffy piles....one purple, and one yellow:
They are both loaded together onto the stationary comb:
And repeat the combing process. Remember trolls?
With the fiber back on the stationary comb, it's time to pull it off into a sliver (sly-ver). The fiber is pulled through a diz, or, in my case, a button with large holes.Here's the nice, blended purple and yellow combed top, ready to spin:
Rolled into a nice ball of fluff:Now, I will note here that combing produces more waste than carding. What's left are short fibers that are picked off the combs after each step...here's my pile:My husband would like to save this to make a dog bed for Her Royal Majesty Seven of Nine. He's welcome to it. Some people use it for felting, or in their gardens as mulch. Who needs irises if the mulch is purple and yellow?

Anyway, here.....drum roll please....is the resulting 2-ply sport weight yarn created after spindling the above troll's hair:This is about 6 grams of yarn, 1/4 ounce, or, enough for a large sweater for a small rat.
One final note: Had I continued combing the yellow and purple together, eventually I would've had brown. Purple and yellow are complements. Complements make wonderful visual partners, but you have to be careful to keep them from blending too thoroughly! You will note that the finished yarn is much more subtle in color than the starting locks. The complementary colors have blended just enough to give it an overall more earthy look while still retaining some of the individual purple and yellow detail. That is the beauty of combining colors "dyed in the wool."

The Sheep in my Living Room....

or.... Why my House Smells Like a Barn!

Meet Kelsie Sprite: (she's the white one) Is it just me, or does she resemble John McCain?

Anyway, does she look cold? That's because her winter coat is on my living room floor:
(Don't worry, Mom, I put it on plastic, see?)
Here is a picture taken without flash, which shows the true color:
This is a Shetland fleece from Windswept Farms in Michigan. It weighs about 2 1/2 pounds. I'd like to learn how to process it into spinning batts. I'd also like to try just spinning locks, as I hear that Shetland locks spin nicely.

One of the first steps will be "scouring" the fleece. That really just means washing it in hot water with Dawn dish washing liquid. Then I can sort the locks, pick out the hay and other "vegetal mattern" and dye them into an assortment of colors. Then I'll be borrowing a drum carder to blend the different colors into heathery combinations ready for spinning.

Well, that's the plan.

Why Dye Roving not Yarn?

Maya had a good question on my last post...why dye the roving? Why not just dye the yarn when it's done?

Well, many people do dye completed yarn and hand-dyed yarn is actually quite a hot commodity, especially for socks!

However, the earlier in the process you do the coloring, the more options there are later on for combining those colors into interesting variations.

For example, if I dye locks of wool fleece, fresh from the sheep (well, I'd wash out the dirt and bugs first), I can then combine those locks with locks of other colors in many ways. Well, if I had the right equipment I could! I would need a carder, hand cards, or combs to combine and prepare the locks for spinning. But the possibilities would be endless.

I could combine mostly grey with little bits of green for a Scottish heathery look. Or equal parts of fuschia and purple just to annoy the neighbors. I could combine half a dozen colors and mix them thoroughly so that they would show up, in the finished yarn, as barely distinguishable, in effect creating a new color. Or I could combine large bold patches of color several inches or more long.

A lot of indie fiber designers sell their fiber creations as "batts" and you can see many on etsy. Notice how this seller has some batts that have quite distinct colors within them and some that are more homogenously mixed. And, she has this one, which is right in between! Each style will produce a dramatically different singles (first-spun yarn, unplied). And then, the plying, if any, will change the character of the yarn dramatically again!

Now, I dye rovings (technically "sliver" - pronounced sly-ver) and top that are made on large machines. The top I dye would be considered commercial and comes from England. The rovings are produced by small mills here in the U.S. that make their living by processing local farm fleeces. Both roving and tops are pre-cursors to yarn, but further along in the process then fleece locks. So I still have many options for combining colors, but not quite as many.

If I dye one batch of roving red and another green then I still have all these options for dramatically different yarns:
~an all red yarn
~an all green yarn
~a 2-ply yarn with a barber-pole of candy-cane effect, red and green swirling around each other
~a 3-ply yarn with 2 plies red and 1 ply green
~a 3-ply yarn with 2 plies green and 1 ply red
~a 4, 5, or more plied yarn of any color combination
~a cabled yarn that combines 2 or more plied yarns together

So, as you can see, the possibilities are broad and exciting!

Now most of my dyed rovings and tops have more than one color or shades within them. So they will spin up into some kind of variegated singles (unplied yarn.) Then, since there are numerous ways to ply the singles, you again get a wide variety of color options. I think that these color gymnastics are one of the biggest appeals of spinning in the first place.

The simplest answer to Maya's question is this:
When you dye the fiber before the yarn is made, any one spot on the yarn can have several colors within it. It's like putting the fudge inside the ice cream!

If you are interested in learning more about the use of color in fiber preparation and spinning, my favorite book is Deb Menz's Color in Spinning.

p.s. Yeah, I'm sewing, but nothing exciting. My estimate for a woven cotton swimsuit was rejected as was the 12' caterpillar...though I think that we'll work out something simpler (i.e. less expensive) for the catepillar and eventually I'll still be able to share that with you! Other than that, it's routine hems and haws.

Some Spinning Progressions

Especially for those of you who aren't familiar with what spinning is all about, here is a step-by-step progression in photos.
1) Undyed Shetland roving:This is approximately 3 pounds...or enough for two sweaters.

2)Dyed Shetland roving:This is 1 OUNCE of the white roving above.

3)"Singles", or a single strand of yarn spun in one direction:Two sets of singles, about .33 ounce total (I've spun leftovers from what I sell....quality control, you know.)

4) Two-ply - those two singles plied together by spinning in the opposite direction.I will use that little bit of yellow, fingering weight, 2-ply in my Fair Isle designs.

It may seem like a lot of trouble to go through for yarn, but it's one of those things...once you've gotten some handspun yarn, there is no going back to commercial! Kind of like once you've used the "expensive" quality quilting cottons there is no going back to the $1.99 stuff.

Here's a couple other recent "mini-skeins":

ACID dyes, fear, and reality

I use acid dyes to color my wool. People tend to get a bit nervous at the term "acid." What, are they thinking of? Green, oozing alien blood, eating through layers of titanium hull?! Truth is, there is no acid in the dyes themselves. And the acid that is used to fix the dyes is nothing more scary than vinegar or citric acid. (You take in citric acid all the time...check your food labels.) Yup, that's it.

As to the "chemical" nature of the dyes and the environment. Well, do you clean your bathroom? I have a feeling that what goes down the drain when you do that may be more damaging than the small amount of dye that does. Thing is, the dye goes from the dye bath solution into the fiber...and it stays there. There is very little waste. Especially when you dye as I do, in a pot (as opposed to painting), and with proper calculations. When the dye bath is cool and I empty the solution from the crockpot it is clear or very nearly so. The most dye that actually goes down the drain is when I mix stock solutions or when I rinse off my measuring equipment.
There are some reasonable safety precautions when working with chemical dyes of course. I do wear a mask and gloves when working with the powders (when mixing them into stock solutions). One is advised not to breath in the powders. So, I'm not advocating careless use of chemical dyes or any dyes. It makes sense to be cautious especially if you will be doing something regularly. I'm just saying that chemical dyes are not evil, earth-ravaging monsters.

Hey, I'm not a biochemist and I'm no environmentalist. But I do consider myself responsible if not fanatical. And I do think that a lot of the talk over "natural" dyes is a bit overrated. Chemicals are chemicals, whether they come from dried up bugs or a lab. And natural dyes need lab-produced chemicals to make them "stick" anyway.

I do see the appeal of natural dyeing in that the colors are quite beautiful and it's an historical craft. I would like to try some of it myself this summer. (Also, I think it would be pretty cool to be dyeing a batch of wool and have the house smelling like French onion soup, raspberries, or marigolds.) But I don't think that natural dyeing is "good" and chemical dyeing is "bad" as seems to be a frequent assumption.

Top or Roving?

CARDED ROVING

When I first started spinning, this confused me too. (I'm *still* fairly new at this, but I've learned a lot. )

The essential difference, as I understand it, is this:

Top is combed. (Please scroll down that page, Jenny's photos of combing are worth it!) The fibers are all of about equal length and all orientated in the same direction:

Roving is carded. There are different lengths of fibers, and they are less organized:These above are not the same colorway, but I think you can see the difference. Below are some close-ups, and these are in the same colorway:

CARDED ROVING
_______

COMBED TOP

The different processes result in quite a different spinning experience. Carded wool contains fibers of various lengths, different types of fibers from the same animal. "Neps" and "noils" are terms used, respectively, for the pills and short fibers often found in carded roving. There is very little waste in the carding process. Often you will find bits of sticks and straw in there too! Carded roving is great for woolen spinning. (lofty, warm yarns)

Top fibers are all of about equal length. There is quite a bit of waste fiber left after combing. Tops spin smoother and are great for worsted spinning. (dense, smooth yarns)

I have also noticed these differences:

~Top is more "slippery"
~Roving is a bit more "fuzzy," both in the fiber stage and after being spun and plied.
~With Shetland, both preparations lead to a soft, springy yarn, though the irregularities of that derived from the carded fibers lend it a more "traditional" or "rustic" feel, especially for a Fair Isle yarn. To me, at least.
~The carded roving I am using has several types of fibers in it (there are technical terms for the different types of fibers that come off one sheep, but I'm not very familiar with those yet), that give the roving some "character." The top, on the other hand, is completely "homogeneous."
~In dyeing, I prefer the way the regular rovings take up dyes. I get a bit more visible variation of the colors I've mixed, and less irregularities in the saturation. (This latter probably due to the fact that the rovings are much thinner than the tops)

***If any sewers have made it this far, let me say that I'd liken carded roving to silk dupioni and combed top to silk charmeuse.

Here are some photos. These red yarns are not from the same colorway.

Fingering 2-ply from top:Fingering 2-ply from carded roving:Roving on top, top on bottom (sigh...I really didn't plan it that way):I can't really decide which preparation I like better so for now I'll continue to dye both.

One final note: Often the term "roving" is used for any long, continuous, cylindrical preparation of fibers for spinning. So you will often see a length of top called roving. Technically, a long length of top though, may better be termed a "sliver" (sly-ver) but that term is less commonly recognized.

This Weekend's Fiber Action

Now I have 3 crockpots so I was able to dye the same amount of wool as in the past two weekends, but with much less scrambling. I am about to get a 4th pot, and then I'll be able to dye 1 pound lots, which is nice for people who are interested in making larger projects with their handspun.

Here are some of the results:
Shetland Tops, all about 4 ounce and available in my etsy shop:
Threw some suiting wool in a couple batches for rug hookers:


Dyeing woven wool is a bit easier than the roving. The roving requires gentle handling to make sure it doesn't turn into a felted mass. But the fabrics had already been machine washed and dried and it's actually preferable if they are completely or partially fulled...you don't want them raveling away as you work with them. I have to say though, I enjoy dyeing the roving more....it's squishy soft, what's not to like?

Another Colorful Weekend

Had some fun with Easter egg colors this weekend....
These are better than hard boiled eggs.
And while those were cooking, I did some spindle spinning:
That pretty spindle comes from ButterFlyGirlDesigns on etsy.
Un-plied spun wool is called "singles," above. As you can see I've taken to winding my singles onto empty serger cones (hmmm...could probably run that through the loopers for some really interesting effects.) Haven't decided yet if I'll use this batch of red and gold singles as is, maybe for lace knitting, or ply it and add it to my stash of yarn for Fair Isle knitting.

I did do some plying this weekend too. Here is a small bit of 2-ply fingering, some of my first hand-dyed Shetland in teal and plum:
And some more of the merino 3-ply fingering I've been working on forever. It's boring black...what ever possessed me to do this 3-ply?

What's Roving For?

So asked Mimi. And so I thought I'd provide a little introduction for those of you that don't knit, spin, or felt.

Roving is a preparation of fibers into a loose, puffy, rope-like length, for dyeing and/or spinning. It's almost like a long thin quilt batt, but with the fibers mostly running in the same direction, parallel to the vertical length of the roving.

Roving is made in wool, alpaca, cotton, bamboo, silk, tencel, and blends.

Roving can be used not only for spinning (on a spinning wheel or with a hand-spindle), but for wet or needle felting.

Spinning of course is the process of twisting parallel fibers for strength. A rope is spun sisal. Yarns are twisted fibers of wool or cotton. Woven fabrics are made of threads that are also twisted fibers.

In sewing, needle felting has become very popular lately for embellishing. I've even seen felting machines, shaped just like sewing machines, and a lot of packs of multi-colored rovings showing up in quilting stores and catalogs. I've found that the packs of assorted colored roving "puffs" on my etsy site are selling better than the larger balls of roving for spinning (which aren't selling at all!)

Needles for needle felting, or "punching" are barbed almost like fishing hooks (on a much smaller scale). When you punch the needle through the wool and into a layer of fabric beneath, it carries some of the wool fiber with it. When the needle comes back out, the wool fibers stay embedded in the fabric.

I have done some needle felting embellishment on knitted and felted bags. Here is an example of the "Sophie" bag by Julie Anderson, pattern available free from MagKnits, embellished with random (i.e. fun) swirly things.other side:

Those were done with yarn scraps, which gives a fairly distinct line. Felting with roving gives you a much broader range of detail (or not) with which to work, because with roving it is easy to work with just a few fibers at a time, or a whole cloudy mass of fibers at a time. I have used roving to felt woolen balls. Why? Just for the heck of it I guess! They can be pretty in a bowl on the coffee table, perhaps mixed with those wicker balls you see so much of lately, or smooth stones from the shore. I have also used wool roving to needle felt pin cushions.

Some of the things that artists are doing with wool felting is amazing. Landscapes, portraits, and sculpture, jewelry. Check out the work by this etsy artist. And this artist will render your pet or favorite wildlife creature in a felted wool sculpture.

Of course there is also wet-felting which I know much less about. I do know it produces gorgeous results. Here is wet-felted wool on silk chiffon. A wet-felted meshed scarf. An unusual collar. A lesson in simplicity.

So that's what wool roving is for, and why I've been dyeing it!

It's Not Haggis

Nope, it's Shetland wool roving! I spent the entire weekend, including Friday, dyeing wool fiber in a crockpot. This was pure, unadulterated, creative fun!

First off, I got to use a color wheel, like some kind of "real" artist! I also referred often to two dyeing books that I'd highly recommend to anyone who wants to try this out:

The Dyer's Companion by Dagmar Klos is an essential collection of formulas, conversions, and general information for dyeing fibers.

Color in Spinning by Deb Menz is a thorough guide to not just dyeing fiber and painting roving, but also working with color when carding fiber or plying singles.

The second reason I had a great time dyeing this weekend is that I got to be a scientist again. I studied microbiology in college and was always in some kind of lab or other....everything from organic chemistry (which sucked, frankly) to electronic microscopy (which was really cool.) I got to use a gram scale and measure crystalline citric acid onto coffee filters. Calculate grams of dye in solution, and the amounts of each solution to use when combining colors in specific strengths. Nothing near as precise or important as the 6-hour process I used to go through to prepare chopped chick embryo livers for the transmission electron microscope...but just enough of a challenge to be fun without stress.

The third reason that I had a blast dyeing was that it's a mysterious process. I experimented with different ways of applying the dyes....all once when the dye bath was cool, all at once at 160°, one at a time at 170°, squirted on , squirted in, and stirred in..... And, every batch was a mystery until the very end...when I finally, after hours, took it out of the water and hung it to dry. Beyond that...when I later fluffed up the fibers and rolled them into a neat ball...they looked different yet again.
And I've still got a big pile of dried fibers yet to be fluffed and rolled:
Note to sewers: This wool roving is the best stuff for the needle felting embellishment that we see so much of lately!

Something magical happened in that dye bath you see in the top photo above. Somewhere in the narrow window between 175° and 180°, the water became clear and the fiber became colored. I know it was just a chemical reaction...but it was pretty darned cool to behold. You see, when you pour off the water at the end of the process...it's water again. It's not blue or green or red, all the color has moved from the water to the fiber and stuck there!

Next weekend I may or may not be dyeing, depending on whether any of this stuff sells or not. I do have an idea for a cool sewing project, also related to spinning that I may work on instead.

Oh, and I may need one of these (and I bet that my sewing friends will appreciate this piece of equipment even if they have no idea what it is...b/c it's just a really neat machine.)
Drum Carder