End of an Era

Hmmm, what exactly are we talking about here? Looks more like a crazy technicolor hurricane than an era or anything else for that matter. So any guesses as to what exactly this is? Come on, share...you guys are creative!

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So the picture above represents an accumulation of more than six years worth of crochet cotton. Why in the world would anyone need such a thing? Well, for the first 5 years we were at the farm I made crocheted market bags. I made a lot of market bags...A LOT! HUNDREDS...literally! And sold them at our booth at the market. They were a nice complement to the vegetables, they were bright, pretty colors and they didn't wilt in the sun.

But then the re-usable grocery bag trend hit and anyone could pick up a perfectly usable, sturdy bag at their grocery store (or Menards, the state fair and just about everywhere else). And thus the bottom fell out of the of the "Market Bag" market . But that was ok, really! I was tired of making them and I had learned to spin by then and was considering selling my handspun yarn instead. Done!

So back to that crochet cotton. As with almost any project, there are leftovers...little bits, too much to throw away, but not enough to be really useful. So you stuff them in a container and occasionally wonder what to do with them.  So today was that day when I wondered...and there was an idea. So I pulled out the tote full of cotton and sat down at my yarn ball winder (good thing I got the jumbo-size!) and spent most of the morning winding all those bits of brightly colored cotton into this enormous ball.

Next I oiled up my wheel and pulled out some white Shetland wool and whomped out some lumpy, bumpy (really Maggie, it is!) thick and thin singles to ply against the crazy clash of colored cotton. Really, the whole thing was so much more sedate than it sounds...I was listening to Simon & Garfunkel as I was doing it so that tells you something. But now I have this new yarn to take to market on Saturday and I'm calling it "End of an Era" yarn since it wraps up the nearly endless days of crocheting market bags quite nicely. Its fun and fresh and will go with absolutely anything! And given the size of that ball of cotton...there should be plenty to come!

**Added 12/15/10 **
Here's a pic of some of the finished yarn ready to go to market. Its not a great pic, but you get the idea.

From There to Here

Last month my friend Claire surprised me with a wonderfully crazy fiber batt to play with. Its a wild blend of different wools, lumpy slubs, sparklies and whatnot. Here's half the batt and the ball of roving made from the other half, all ready to spin.

The real fun with a batt like this is that you have no idea what the resulting yarn will look like.
Here's the result...


And a gratuitous close up for you real yarn junkies...


What a fun project this was, thanks Claire for the treat!!

Spinning Locks

For Christmas this year I was gifted (among other cool things) a bag of mohir locks dyed in a rainbow of colors by talented friend Maggie.

I wanted to spin them with something that would really show off their lustrous color, but didn't have any fiber that I thought fit the bill. Finally I took some of the beautiful grey shetland from an earlier Fiber CSA delivery and tried to dye it black. Yeah, my dyeing skills still need some honing. I tried two different dye baths, and finally ended up with a mottled black and dark grey, nearly felted fiber. Grrrr!
Not exatcly what I was hoping for, but I decided to use it anyway. So I spun the locks into the shetland for one single.

Then plyed that against a plain shetland single. It isn't exactly what I was hoping for, but it did make a couple of  interesting skeins of yarn.

Not sure yet if I will sell them or keep them for my own stash.

Dyeing to Spin

Ok, its a sad attempt at a pun, but I couldn't think of a better one. For those of you who aren't interested in fiber and spinning, never fear, I'll get back to talking about the farm soon. This is just a fun "inclement weather" project.

I spent last Sunday with my fiber enablers (Maggie, John & Terri). We had fiber, dye, good food, wine, way more kittens than one would think possible, good friends and lots of laughing. What more could a hungry fiber junkie want?

Here's some of my results from our experimenting:

Sunday's dyed wools

Sunday's dyed silk

A close-up of the corriedale wool...can't wait to spin this up

And finally, a little side by side comparison:

This is the wool, freshly dyed

And this is the yarn, freshly spun (from the above wool). The color change is pretty remarkable, and its not just poor photo quality, they really are that different.

Yep, still a newbie spinner...still learning!

Fiber fun

Last week I went on a fabulous fiber field trip with friends Maggie, John and Terri. The event was a gathering of fiber folks at the wonderful High Prairie Fibers. To top off the excitement of meeting a group of amazing people and learning volumes, I brought home some new dyes so that I can start playing 'mad fiber scientist' on my own.

So earlier this week I decided to take the plunge and start dyeing some of my fiber stash. I started with a couple of bumps of a nondescript white wool and a couple of bumps of naturally colored, striped roving from The Sheep Shed's Grab Bag Special.

I had spun several bumps of this wool in its natural state, but wanted to play around with over-dyeing it to see what would happen.


I wanted to try out solar dyeing, so I decided to try one batch sitting in the sunroom window, and the other in the solar oven to compare the results.

white roving with emerald green dye, in amongst the rosemary

Brown striped roving with emerald green dye in the solar oven

The results were mixed. I packed too much fiber into the jar, and the clouds rolled in so neither the jar or the solar over really maintained enough heat for long enough, but it was a fun experiment nonetheless.

Here's a close-up of the jar dyeing right before I pulled it out and rinsed it. The color gradations were really cool, but I especially liked the reflections of the trees in the glass.

And the resulting rovings...

I will spin them seperately and then ply together for the finished yarn. I also did a set of the same white and striped rovings in Fire Red, but by this time the clouds had rolled in, so dyed them on the stove.

Will post pics of the finished yarns when I have a chance.