Cormo Fleece

This is 22 micron Cormo fleece that I received today. Its so soft and very clean. I will only have to pick while carding and its ready to spin. I love love love it.

Polwarth prep

Polwarth on the hand cards




Elongated like using a diz. The polwarth is too fragile to actually use a diz though so i just pull it out.



and on the bobbin

Drum carded blue faced leicester

violet blue faced leicester hand dyed and drum carded




The licker-in drum fills to this level and stays at that. Then it collects the not so desireable parts of the fiber away from the big drum.

 

Lobster and violet colored hand dyed blue faced liecester ran thru the carder 3 times. They are very very soft and airy. Each battie started out at .7 ounces and after the third pass thru carder they weigh in at .5. Lots of air.


These will be mixed with bamboo that is still un-dyed. Then I am going to over-dye them all with a pale mahogany and gold in a self striping pattern. Then spun into lace weight singles and navajo plyed for color uniformity and textural interest. Will post those pics when done.

Optim navajo plyed

Here is the optim that I handpainted blue and mahogany, then spun up into singles and navajo plyed. I love it, so soft and squishy.


The violet is merino and bamboo


the brown is polwarth navajo plyed

Optim and Bamboo top for spinning

I got some really lovely optim and bamboo from Paradis Fibers today. Also ordered some of the ashford dyes that arent here yet. I have decided that spining the yarn and then dying is the way to go. Dying after prep is they way I prefer to go these days. I dont like the candy cane effect of dying the top, spinning and then plying. When I ply the singles I get the candy cane look. It is a look all its own and fine for itself. I havent tried navajo plying, guess I will do that today and see how that goes as far as avoiding the candy cane look.
So this week will be spent just prepping fiber, and spinning. Then next week the dying.
Here is the Louet drum carder and spun bats.



I have used the Cushings dyes so far. Now the ashford dyes get a chance. Then once I get that down I want to move onto the natural dyes. That should take half the year to become decent at. My preference is natural for all the pertinent reasons. I can see from reading enough on it that natural dying is very time intensive but well worth the effort and that is the direction that I prefer to go in.
Here is some llama and polwarth spun and navajo plied.

Silk top and Skull hats on the burner

Here is a picture of my wonderful Kiwi spinning wheel. I love it even though its a cheap model. My Louet drum carder will be here one day this week too and I will upload those pics asap.


I have taken on a project for Julie at J-Knits.com to knit a Sivia Harding Diamond Fantasy Shawl for the trade shows that she attends this year. She sent me this yarn and here is the start of it. I love her yarns.... This is the Denver colourway from www.j-knits.com.




And here are shots of the yarn that I made for a "we call them pirates hat". I have made one of them for my son's Xmas present and now one for a friend.




Here is the silk top that I got at WoolyManor.etsy.com from Cheryl. I love it so much, this will be carded together with the 18 mircron merino wool top that I have. I ordered some Jacquard dyes today and this top will be done in my Briar Rose colourway and spun up into 3ply dk weight yarn and for sale on my etsy store shortly.

Shawl from hand-spun yarn

This easy pattern is really just a redo of the fan and feather pattern. I like it for the think and thin first handspun yarn though. This is a micro-blend of fiber from Ashland Bay. Superwash merino and columbia wool in the sherbert color.