Cautiously Optimistic

The nice thing about being a small business is that I'm very, very flexible. I don't have employees with specialized skills whose time needs to be used wisely, I don't have to pay rent on a separate business space, and I don't have large standing orders that need to be fulfilled or else I lose customers. When something changes, I can change with it.

This is not to say that it's easy, change, no matter what the circumstance. I had a rhythm going. I had regular customers and a fairly predictable set of activities that I would do over the course of a week or a month. Then I needed to stop dyeing in the house, and everything had to be rethought.

However -- I've been thinking and researching and planning these past weeks, and I think I have a workable plan. Here it is.

Firstly, my experiments with Wilton's and my research on the subject (which mostly consisted of talking to a lot of dyers on Ravelry who have used it and various other dyes) has led me to believe that it is not the answer to my problems. I believe I would be sacrificing too much in terms of my results (can't get the colourways I want) if I switched to food dye. So it has to be the toxic stuff.

However, I have figured out how to do a limited amount of dyeing on my front porch. How miserable this strategy makes me in January remains to be seen; it probably behooves me to stockpile a bit. I'm also investigating taking part in Felicia Lo's (Sweet Georgia's) shared studio, a project that she's setting up so that several of the casual and small independent dyers, weavers, and spinners (both business people and hobbyists) can have a suitable space for their activities. I'm not the only dyer out there with the problem of how to use toxic dye without polluting one's living space.

Secondly, the fiber sales are not kaput, but they will be limited. I will not wholesale my fiber, except for the carded batts that I offer to the two local stores I sell through. I will continue to sell some fiber on Etsy and to those who know me well enough to send an email that says "hey what do you have right now, can you send me a picture?"

Thirdly, I need to sell a lot more yarn. I haven't pushed the yarn sales because my fiber sales were doing so well. My yarn sales were mostly wholesales through Three Bags Full and Black Sheep Yarns. This was perfectly satisfactory to me -- the volume was high enough that the cut I take on the wholesale price still leaves me sufficiently compensated for my spinning time, and the online fiber sales made up the rest of my paycheque. Now, though, I need to somehow convince The Internet to buy more yarn. I can do this. I just have to put my mind to the marketing problem.

The last part of the strategy is teaching, which is ramping up about now. My beginners class at Black Sheep will begin this week, and it already has 5 or 6 people in it -- which is awesome. There are three or four more classes already scheduled at the shop, and once I find out whether my Arts Centre classes are going ahead, I'll be able to firmly schedule a bunch more for later in the Fall.

So that's that. I feel much less panicked than I did a couple weeks ago. I'm heavily buoyed up by yesterday's success -- I handpainted some BFL and cooked it in my new, standalone turkey roaster which lives on the front porch. Here is the roaster:


And here is the 3lbs of wool I painted:


3lbs is almost nothing compared to my previous production, but I'm still working out the details. It's a bit like going back to stovetop cooking, this roaster, and managing convection and colour splitting is something I'm having to re-learn. The batches are slow, very slow, so far, and I can't queue them up like I could with my oven method. I probably won't have many more 10 lb days, but hey, that's fine -- I'm mostly dyeing to supply my own spinning, and I can only spin so fast. Slow is fine.

Lastly -- I have had my final Farmer's Market. For some reason, this season has been the pits for sales at the market. Dunno why, but it has. So I've cancelled my last two scheduled days, because I have more productive ways to spend my time than huddling outside in the cold. The market was awesome while it lasted, and I'll continue to shop there, but my days as a vendor are over for now.

Hear that squealing noise? Those were my brakes.

This past week, I've been going through some major changes. I have to stop dyeing the way I have been.

For the time being, I can't use the Ciba dyes inside my house. I'm too concerned about traces of the dye getting into my system and into my family's system. I mix the powders in the little laundry nook in my bedroom (wearing gloves and a respirator), but I have some concern about the powders spreading out into the sleeping space. I mix the dye stocks in the laundry room too, which involves opening and closing a lot of jars, all of which have dried dye on the edge, which can spread more powder.

I handpaint the fibers in my kitchen. I put down a big shower curtain with a towel on top of it, but still, splashes occur, and since I'm still opening and closing plastic tubs with dried dye around the edge, there's probably some powder spreading. In the cooking area.

Step 1: No dye in the house. It's on my covered front porch now, in a big wooden bin.

Step 2: Figure out how to colour fiber without going back on Step 1.

So this is where I am. I see two options: use new dye, or dye outside the house.

The new dye possibility is Wilton's. Wilton's is an icing dye, available for purchase at Michael's Craft Store. It's expensive, but it's a cost I don't mind eating if it makes a difference. The reports on Wilton's aren't great, though. It's very difficult to manage (some of the colours -- several of the colours, in fact -- split like crazy, making predictable results hard to achieve), and it's not as light- and colour-fast as the professional grade dyes. I know of one Etsy seller who is very successful using it, but I'm skeptical. And my early experiments have not gone well. I'd post a picture of the bad, bad colours, but it's just embarrassing. Also, there isn't a decent black with Wilton's.

i just got tipped off about a "Green" dye with no heavy metals in it. I have contacted the company about their MSDS sheet and am waiting to hear. We'll see.

The other option is to dye outside my house. This would involve having someone else mix my dye stocks (I'm sure I can find a teenager who will do it for the right price), and having me retreat to my covered front porch to mix my colours and paint the wool. I would dye using a crock pot and maybe this cooker I found at Canadian Tire. I hear Felicia of Sweet Georgia uses an outdoor turkey roaster, and I'll be emailing her about that. The downside of this option is that a) it's cold and damp out there for most of the next 6 months, and b) it's a bit expensive, what with cooking outside and all the heat waste that implies.

Whichever of these options I choose, it still means that I'm pretty much only making enough fiber for my own spinning purposes. I can't see doing production dyeing with these methods. I might be able to do some fiber sales in the form of carded batts, and I'm willing to try to expand that, but so far my batts haven't been big sellers.

No fiber sales, that hurts. Fiber sales is 80% of my business right now, and for the past few months I've sold close to $1000 worth each month. Putting a total stop to that will hurt my bottom line, and I'm not doing this business as a hobby. It's a valuable part of my household budget.

The bright side is that, if ever there was a time to really push my yarn sales, the beginning of autumn is it. And I have 5 knitting classes starting in a few weeks; hopefully that will become a more significant source of income. And teaching? Completely non-toxic. I can do lots of that, and no protective equipment is necessary.

So that's where I'm at -- going out of my tree, more or less. Any attempt at helpful information or friendly hand-holding will be appreciated.

My desk clutter has changed

My desk clutter used to be like most people's desk clutter. Bills that need to be paid, papers that need to be filed, a book in progress, pens that may or may not work, and a half-drunk cup of coffee from earlier in the week. But it's different now. Now I have a baby bottle full of olive oil that I was using to oil my wheel because I couldn't be bothered to go buy the proper kind, 13 batts of burgundy-based fiber blend destined to become tweed yarn, a spare bobbin, some thrift store yarn that will be used to attach labels to my stuff, some exciting sparkly eyelash yarn destined to be the binder in a wild boucle, a bag full of assorted fiber gifted to me by a friend, my case of knitting accessories -- and that half-drunk cup of coffee. Today's anyway.

Does the Fly Lady have anything to say about fiber kipple?

Keepin' it real

I've been taking a proper spinning class, and despite the humbling feeling of not knowing how to make my fingers interact with the fiber in such a way as to produce knittable yarn, I've been enjoying it tremendously. But this week, I'm positively singing with creative possibilities.

On the first day of the class, we touched raw fleece and did a little carding, to get the feel for how to separate and then line up the fibers, how to draft and add enough twist. The carding was cool, and it did produce the most lovely little fiber nibbles, but I couldn't honestly see how it was useful for doing volume work -- and it's not. It's a technique for those who have all the time in the world to just enjoy fondling fibers.

Cut to now, some 9 classes later, and we're all working on the long draw drafting technique. For those of you who don't spin, it's like this -- you build up a bunch of twist on a short bit of the yarn you have just made, pinching it so the twist doesn't travel down, then (if all goes well) you quickly swoop your fiber-holding hand down and away, and a perfectly even strand appears almost like magic from the fiber mass.

If all goes well. In practice, my early experiments with this technique have led to slubs, micro-fine thread, and broken bit after broken bit.

I'm not tangenting. Back to fiber preparation now. Last week, we were given some dyed but otherwise unprocessed Romney wool, and told to card and spin it. Carding, as well as neatening up the lanolin-covered fibers considerably, blended the colours up -- yum. Here is my basket of hand carded, sprinkle-dyed, raw romney locks:



I spun them using the long draw method, and even though the fibers were not expertly carded (read: they were still tangled), and even though they were sticky as all get-out with lanolin, I still managed a relatively smooth (read: I didn't keep breaking the strand as I made it) long draw. I felt proud. (I'd show you the yarn I spun, but there is no good light for taking a picture right now; I'll try to take one tomorrow.)

Today in class, I used the drum carder. I created a batt, which is much like a rolag except bigger. The fibers were all aligned, but they were so airy and light, they just drafted like a dream. I actually achieved the "swoop" with very little breakage and slubbing.

So, here are the pieces I have put together now. 1) Home fiber preparation, leading to airy fibers and the possibility of creating my own blends of fiber type and colour. 2) A successful, quick long-draw.

Suddenly, exciting yarn possibilities are open to me. Heathered yarn, which is made from different coloured fibers blended together to create a single colour of marvellous depth and movement, like watershot taffeta, is a possibility now. Tweed is possible.

Did you hear me? Tweed. Am I the only one who gets a somewhat indecent thrill at the idea of a gorgeous tweed?

I have this bag of dark blue faced leicester that I've been saving to do something special with, and I think I have a plan now. I'm going to dye it either blue-red or magenta. I'm going to drum card it with flecks of electric blue, canary yellow, and forest green. I'm going to make tweed batts, spin it up to a worsted or aran weight, and make myself a sweater. A hooded sweater -- it will be my demo project for the next class I teach in knitting sweaters without a pattern.

Then I will never take it off, not ever.

Anyone have a drum carder for sale? I'm looking to buy.

Buy Local

Just a quick note to remind folks that I will be at the Coquitlam Farmer's Market tomorrow. I have a huge variety of my yarn, so if you want to see everything I have all at once, the Market is the place to do that.

I have less fiber than I'd like though. My sales this month have been overwhelming -- which is great! -- so my stock is low. I have 18 lbs of BFL on order that will likely arrive in time for me to dye on Friday, so expect new stuff to start being available as of May 26th.

I have returned to making sock yarn. I took a long break from doing that, because I just wasn't satisfied with what I was producing -- it didn't match the picture in my mind. I've been learning tons from my spinning class though, and the other day I produced a 165 gram skein of DK weight yarn that makes me really happy. It's here, if you want to see. I used a worsted drawing technique, fresh fiber, low tension, and very even plying -- I'm very happy with the results. Happy enough that I might, just might, make more.

If you're in the GVA, come visit me tomorrow!

Natural Progression

After considerable time spent in front of my wheel, listening to audiobooks and Massive Attack, I have spun 60 new skeins of yarn. Here are 40+ of them, drying outside -- actually drying, not just dripping until they match the ambient humidity of the Pacific Northwest outdoors in spring. I do love the improvements in the weather -- I was having a hard time staying happy, with all the grey skies. Sun make Kirsten happy.



This is all in preparation for Got Craft? this Sunday, May 4th. I'm looking forward to the show. I've been watching the vendor profiles go by on the show's blog, and I'm excited to be in such creative and accomplished company. If you're in the GVA on Sunday, it looks as though this show will be well worth the $2 admission.

Tomorrow -- labeling! My least favourite job, but a necessity.

Moving too fast to blog...

I just looked in my little dyeing notebook -- I keep something resembling actual records now, which is a big shift for me -- and it tells me that I have dyed 19 3/4 lbs of wool this week. That's probably a record, although of course I can't be sure since I just started keeping this notebook. It's a lot of wool, in any case. More than 50% of that will be sold as fiber, but I aim to have a good 30% of it spun up by Thursday of next week (the last day I can have skeins in the water for finishing, and still have them dry by Sunday). My to do list -- it's colourful, but it's long.

So I'm moving a little too fast to blog at the moment. I would love to show you what 19.75 lbs looks like, but honestly, some of it is in my spinning basket, some of it is already braided up, some is piled up waiting to be braided, some is still wet outside and one pound is still in my oven. I can show you what Day 1 of dyeing looked like:





My big success this week is finally creating a "Ianto" roving that is exactly what I pictured in my head. This colourway involves two shades of purple, and my violet dye is one of those that intensifies 10x in the dyepot -- purple has often defeated me. My solution was to stop using that dye to try to create purple. Instead, I use red, magenta, turquoise, and cobalt in various combinations to get the shades I want. So I'm very pleased. Not only did I get the roving to turn out just like I wanted it, but I know what I did, so I can reliably duplicate my results. Probably. Won't know until I try again! I also (to continue the Whoverse theme) redid my Tardis colourway and got results I'm pleased with -- but I'm still going to refine that one. I'll post my Tardis roving tomorrow on Etsy.

Lastly, my BSJ is finished except for blocking and buttons. It should fit a largish 2 year old, and it took 5 skeins of Yummy Yarn. It's sooo cushy and pretty.

Back to it

Well that was a lovely little break. I have been working, but really, not much. I'm kind of amazed by how long it has taken me (is taking me) to get back to my usual work rhythm. Partly, I was really wiped by Fibrefest, and partly, life just sort of took over. It's the curse of the work-at-home-mom -- if an errand needs to be done, then the one who works at home is going to be the one to give up work time to do it. And I get that, it makes sense. I don't need to book time off with anyone, rearrange meetings, file paperwork with HR. But still, there have been a lot of little things -- holidays that preschool takes but not any other business, illnesses, etc -- and they have taken over 50% of my usual three days a week working time lately.

But I'm back to it! I spent Tuesday communing with the dyepots, and dyed 8lbs of corriedale. The current batch is possibly even lovelier than usual; Hello Yarn is such a great supplier, so reliable and affordable. Can't say enough good about them and their product. Here is some of what I have dyed:



The current batch of BFL is sort of intriguing. It has an incredibly soft hand, and the fibers are long and very fluffy. It's wonderful to spin, soft, a bit soapy/silky to draft. However, there are these regular little tufts of very short hairs. Any spinners know what those are? They must be something that's usually combed out, that wasn't in this batch. Anyway, it's spinning up fine, but I'm having to slow down and be careful when I get to the short-ish bits.

In other news, I have signed up for the comprehensive spinning class at Place des Arts starting next week. Here's my little secret -- I'm a beginner spinner. I can do a couple types of yarn rather well, so I'm confident about what I offer for sale, but my range of skills is not high. I'm looking forward to this course, so that I can learn the basics right from the dirty-fleece stage, fill in gaps in my basic knowledge, and extend my skills so that I can spin different types of fiber with confidence. I have learned as much as I can by myself, with YouTube videos and experimenting, and I'm looking forward to learning from a real live teacher in a classroom situation.

And to close -- here is some yarn to look at. I am still trying to perfect the colourway "Ianto." Torchwood fans -- waddya think of this batch? I didn't get the charcoal element in, quite, but if you see it as just a tie-shirt combo, it's rather good I think.

I feel pretty...

Well, not me precisely. Me, I need a haircut, my roots are severely grown out, and I'm still fighting an unpleasant multi-symptom virus that had me cancelling class on Saturday and, what's more not meeting my spinning quota for the day, but the part of me that I'm all focussed on these days -- the wooly part of me -- that feels awfully pretty. Here is my upstairs half-wall thingy:


And my back patio drying racks:


And two bigass bins o' yarn in my spinning room:



I am actually feeling not completely panicked, not entirely inadequate, not like I am about to be cleaned out of my meagre supplies within moments of Fibrefest's doors opening, leaving me with 15 hours in which to apologize to potential customers that I have nothing to show them.

I had a little burst of energy yesterday and I managed to dye another 4lbs of corriedale, in awfully pretty colours. Not having much in the way of creativity left, I dyed colourways that have been popular in the past and all 4 batches turned out just like I wanted. I spun 12 skeins of yarn as well, and felt generally cheerful in the process.

Did I mention the unexpected not panicking? That was nice.

Today, I'm starting with some relaxing spinning -- a very pretty Shetland roving:


And in case you missed it: Fibrefest is in Abbottsford on March 7-8, *not* at Tradex where it used to be. Follow the link for driving directions, and come visit me there!

In the queue

I had intended to post a bunch of the soft-spun corriedale that I've been making -- loads of new colourways, all gorgeous, I'm very proud -- but they all got bought before I could post them. Hardly a problem, but a bit of a surprise. It seems that the half-size (as in, 55g instead of 110g) skeins are selling marvellously well at Three Bags Full, much better than the full size, and they wanted to re-stock a mere two weeks after they bought their last batch from me. I'm delighted, but the cupboards are bare. Pictured above is what I managed to spin in four or five days of being at home with a sick child. It's not my usual high rate of production, but the variety is high. I should be able to post one new yarn a day for the next week or so. Which is good, because I'm going to be unable to get any spinning done until Tuesday.

I swear, I haven't gotten a decent stretch of work days since November. Christmas, visitors, illness -- it conspires to take away what little time I have. And getting the two year old to understand that she has to let me spin is a tough sell.

One month until Fibrefest! My goodness, I am *so* not ready. Much work and stockpiling to be done.

7.5 pounds of wet wool

It doesn't sound like a good time, seven and a half pounds of wet wool, but it depends on what wool, and why it's wet. Check out what I spent 5 hours doing yesterday:




It's hard to tell until it's spun, but on that rack are rovings that will become new batches of Kyoto, Gummy Worms, and Time Held me Green and Dying, as well as a bunch of new colours. Also coming soon, the return of Booberry. I got a couple skeins just right, and four that are too pale -- I'm calling those Son of Booberry.

I'm off to class this morning, and I'm theoretically looking forward to it, but if I had a time machine and could freeze this day a little longer, I'd do it. I have a pounding head, a dripping nose, and a great sense of being very sorry for myself.

Knitting will help, surely. It usually does.

Back to the steam

Today, I'm hitting the dyepots, and hitting them hard. Three Bags Full has indicated that they want more rovings, and Fibrefest is coming, so I'm trying to keep the stock high. I'm also low on sock yarn, so I'll be snagging a few braids for my own spinning.

It's nice to be back to it. My daughter finished with her daycare at the end of November, so I had all of December and the first two weeks of January with her in the house, as well as Christmas visitors. I can spin under those conditions, but dyeing requires unbroken time to get anything useful done. Today -- I have unbroken time. And a full pot of coffee!

Here are two pots full of wool and dye, cooking away:




The Farmer's Market yesterday was better than last month, in terms of sales and the warmth of the room. I was prepared yesterday with wooly tights, wool socks (handknit), jeans, boots, a tank, a very thin sweater, a thick sweater, a scarf, arm warmers (handknit Koigu), a hat (handknit handspun), and mittens (handspun handknit). I'm nothing if not a walking advertisement for the benefits of wool, and the joy of knitting. Needless to say, I didn't find myself needing all of those things, which is great, because when I'm wearing all of them, I look a little bit like I'm the victim of some sort of knitwear pile-on.

The Winter Market is getting a number of the regular visitors, those who frequent the summer market, but there are new faces too. I continue to enjoy talking to the various crafters who visit my table and tell me about their projects. I'm afraid I was slightly in "pounce" mode though. More than one person heard me respond, seemingly casually, "You know, I teach knitting at the Port Moody Arts Center.. I managed to give out all of the brochures I brought with me, and there seems to be interest in my classes. Not that I didn't enjoy the 3-4 students per class last term, but more would definitely be better.

I didn't trade yarn for anything, but I bought 3 loaves of bread from an amazing baker, a few pounds of organic fuji apples, eggs, carrots, strawberries (thank the flying spaghetti monster for vendors who freeze their stuff so they can sell it in the winter!), ethically and organically raised beef, and fig stuffed olives.

Lastly -- I did indeed write up the pattern for the colourwork mittens. It's available on my shop for a small fee, but free if you buy the yarn from me. Here's a suggested colour combo that I really like:

Inky the Squid Boy

I'm having a peaceful week. I'm working a bit, but mostly I'm coasting. I worked very hard to get ready for last Sunday, and the work paid off -- my stock is high, and full of variety. In fact, when I was struck with a dyeing idea on Tuesday and pulled out my undyed wool, I found that I was almost completely out of the BFL. Time to reorder!

26 lbs of undyed wool is on its way to me, and I'll undoubtedly have a big production week when it comes, but until then, I can regroup, and experiment a bit. I was struck with this idea. Or rather, I was struck with a neat yarn made by someone else, and I stole the idea. The yarn I was knitting with -- just a partially synthetic Patons yarn -- had one ply of black yarn, and one ply of various colours. The effect was a sort of all over tweedy, but with different accent colours. It would be easy enough to dye for -- just make a bunch of pure black, and then short bits of various other colours, joining one to the next as the whim strikes me. Here's the first attempt to dye this style of colourway:


I also did one batch of what I presume is my shetland wool. It was in an unmarked bag. It felt like the shetland, but the differences between the fibers are somewhat subtle, until they're washed. Once it dries, I'll know for sure what it is. I was asked to do some "boy" colours, and I rather like how this turned out -- it's all inky. Dark enough to be manly, but varied enough to be interesting to spin and knit. I call this "Inky the Squid Boy." (I've been watching a lot of Buffy lately.)



Lastly -- this one is brand new. It's a wool/soysilk blend. I ordered a single, 4oz package, just to try it out. My attempts at dyeing a merino/silk blend haven't gone great -- the stuff is touchy! And I hated spinning with it too. So, no more of that. But I have these wool/seacell socks that feel so wonderful, so I thought I'd try to spin enough of the wool/soysilk to make myself a pair of socks, and we'll see how the yarn turns out, how it knits, how it wears. Then I'll consider the possibility of making more for friends or for sale. In the meantime, I still want to show off the dye job, because it breaks my heart with the colourful blendy wonderfulness.

Colour Therapy

I had a seriously bad day yesterday, but I had to do some dyeing, no time to sit on the couch with a gin bottle and the remote control. I decided to combat the bad mood with some silly, candy colours. My very favourite. The pictures below are of a rack of blue faced leicester, some destined to sell some destined to be made into sock yarn, then socks. I'm picturing a row of candy-coloured feet as I type.















A closeup:



And some sock yarn drying -- I did some more sedate colours in the last batch, and I'm spinning them up now:

This Week in Wool

I got a new shipment of supplies on Monday morning, so I spent my two child-free days this week applying dye to wool by means of boiling, acidic water. My house stinks of vinegar, but there are many pretty wooly things to look at. In fact, I've decided to take a new approach to decorating:


It's hard to get the wool fully dry outside in this cool, damp season, so after the wool has dripped outside fora couple days, I move it inside. Through the winter, my railings will form a large part of my drying strategy. It alarms my husband, though, when he walks down to the front entry way and is greeted with the hanging wool-tentacles.



My dyepot has mellowed from the somewhat stormy mood it was apparently in on Tuesday; today I managed to produce a bunch of lovely, sagey green, as well as a marvellous batch of purple.

Eight Year Old Girl at Heart

Apparently, I'm an eight year-old girl at heart, or else I'm already mourning the end of summer. I honestly didn't set out on Tuesday morning to dye an entire batch of bright pinks, oranges, and yellows. My first batch was going to be bright -- I wanted to do up a whole bunch of The Emperor of Ice Cream for an upcoming craft fair, since I think the babyish colours will sell well to the mothers of babies who attend this fair, but that was all I meant to do in those tones.



While Emperor was cooking, Mary (the knitter of the gorgeous My So-Called Scarf pictured in an earlier entry) came over for a visit, and I just did some simple stuff while she was here -- an orange and pink kettle-dye job, using the dye leftover from Emperor. Then when Mary left, I found a convo from someone who wanted to buy some Barbie Girl but only if she could have more than one skein of it -- enter the three batches of pink I cooked, trying to get a good match to the existing skein. I eventually overdyed one batch with some purples, because there's only so much pink a person needs.



After my pink extravaganza, I tried to duplicate an earlier colourway that's been requested, Maiden and Mother, but I ended up with something a little more asian in flavour (I think I'll call it Paper Cranes).



Anyway, it's not that I"m not happy, heck, I'm *very* happy. I love to dye and spin bright, clear, candy-like colours. And I can only hope that people like to knit with them too, because it's all I'll be doing for a couple of weeks. See this orange? I could eat this orange:

It isn't easy being green

I'm still having trouble with green. I don't know if I'm the only dyer with green problems, but here they are:
1. blue and yellow "strike" the fiber at different temperatures and different acidity levels. I sometimes have a pot full of exactly the shade I want, but when I pull the fiber out, a lot of the blue dye is still there, and the fiber is a lot yellower than intended.
2. To mix up green, I have my choice of cobalt, turquoise, and navy, and "yellow" and "gold-yellow." Each blue, and each yellow, has different implications to the final shade.
3. I also have a "green" dye that isn't much green at all, but in fact a lovely shade of blue-green. It has to be mixed at about a 1:1 ratio with yellow to make what I would call green.
4. I don't keep notes.

Some of these problems are things I could solve, but won't (like No. 4). Some of these problems, I'm getting better at (like No. 2). Problem No. 1 is problem No. 1. I think I have just the right shade, it looks great dabbed on the paper towel, but somehow in the pot everything ends up a lot more yellow than I think. Here is some green that is not at all what I meant, but it's kind of interesting nonetheless:



Now here is some fiber I feel less ambiguous about. Check out the one with the spots of orange, dark purple, and chocolate brown. When I spin it, the intense spots will blend with the white to make long, streaky strands of wonderfulness. I can't wait.



And here is my wheel. Oh, sugar sugar. It only takes me about 3 hours to make a sock yarn, but I've been at it for days. The toddler is not being patient with me spinning, and not playing with her. Oh well, wool can wait.

A study in wool and water

My husband always gets a kick out of when I say "I think I'll dye today" so casually as he's leaving for work. Yesterday was Dyeing Day, and I dyed every fiber of blue faced leicester I had in the house -- about 5 pounds. I enjoyed myself. I was productive. See?



I've been really enjoying the dyeing, and getting better results, since I got my big square roasting pan that lets me lay the roving out in longish parallel strips. Because I'm dealing with a square, not a circle (as in my giant dye pots), I do a sort of hybrid between immersion dyeing and handpainting. The big advantage of handpainting is that you use less water and so you can use colours that ought not be allowed to blend, right beside each other. The big advantage of immersion dyeing is that it's like a one-pot meal -- less dishes, easier to prepare. So now, I can use some of the more high contrast colour combinations while still not using a ton of saran wrap (required for handpainting) or crouching down on my back patio for long periods of time (ouchy on the knees).

Anyway, lots of bfl. I especially like how this one turned out:





I can't say it's quite exactly what I intended -- I'm still getting some dye pot surprises, most consistently when I use green. I'm having trouble managing green. It tends to split rather badly, no matter how much salt I use in the bath, and I'm finding that the yellow component kind of intensifies in the dyepot -- or maybe the blue part just isn't quite striking? I know, more acid, more heat, I'm trying. I'll get it.

And here is yesterday's experiment -- pure tussah silk, two 4oz batches of it:


When it dries I'll pull out a few fibers just to make sure I didn't accidentally tangle them up in the dye pot, then I'm posting them for sale. Me, I like to spin a more robust fiber (notice how I don't offer merino? I really dislike the stuff), but I think there are some spinners out there who would love to have some silk to play with.

Wish me a sunny day, and the fleece will dry faster and get turned into sock yarn.