Self striping yarn post number one

yep that means there will be more!

As I mentioned in the newsletter, I am trying my hand at making a large stripe self striping yarn. The idea is you take one skein and break it into three (or however many you want) smaller skeins with the yarn all connected and looping from the first mini skein to the second to the third and then back to the first and continue to repeat this until you run out of yarn. I read about it and decided to try it.

The suggested method of doing this is to take two chairs, cover them with a towel to help the yarn not to slip and then wind the yarn around both chairs a few times. I did twice. Then move lower on the chairs and go around twice more, the lower and twice again. You then take the yarn back to the first set and wind twice more. Repeat until you run out of yarn. Does this work? yep. Does your back scream in agony? yep. Is it remotely easy to keep the yarn loops where you want them? NO! I did this in my parent's living room - their dinner room chairs are taller with more detail - which helped some. So did my Dad. Post two will talk (and show as I wouldn't forget my camera!) the help Dad is suggesting.

On to the dye pot. I used Mother Mackenzie Miracle Mix dyes for this in brown, blue, and purple. I pre soaked the fibers in Sythrapol and used a crockpot and citric acid for the dyepot. In this method you dye each mini-skein separately, but allow the dye to wick up into the connecting yarn pieces.

 It looks like a bit of a jumble here. Some of that is due to the chair wrap method. Some is likely because I had about 6 feet between the chairs.

 Brown is dyed and the purple is in the pot.

 Pulling the purple out!

 Dyeing the blue, the sponge is catching drips for me as the yarn is quite wet. I do think having the skeins hanging over the pot helps the wicking process.

 After dyeing the skeins were soaked again and hung to dry.

The yarn I chose had quite a bit of over twist, which I plan to correct before proceeding.

Julia

wool cleaning

While reading the book Wild Color from the guild's library I saw that the author suggests washing raw fleece by placing it in a vat of water with dish-washing liquid for 12 to 16 hours. This seems contrary to my experience and all other readings I have done. Does anyone have experience with this method? 

Scarves of yellow

I finished weaving up the scarves from the two sun dyed yarns. I used the dyed yarns as the warp and un-dyed yarn of the same type - along with some chemically dyed hand spun wool for a textural difference - as the weft. I got two full length scarves from this project and a bit more I did up as an art piece. I am very happy with how it turned out. Additionally, no dye transferred or was present in the wash water during the fulling of either scarf, so I am confident with the colorfastness of the dye job. One scarf (pictured top and bottom most here) was woven with a very loose weave, the other with a much tighter. The warp was threaded 1,2,3,4,3,2,1 and woven twill.

Dyepot - sunny yellow

Large jar full of Showy Goldenrod

Volunteer Sunflower-y flowers I used. If anyone knows what the birds planted in my yard, let me know!

Jars in the sun, no yarn yet.

Closeup of the Marigolds and sunflower-y flowers.

We start chasing the sun.

More sun chasing and the yarn is in there now.

Showy Goldenrod on the top, Marigold and Sunflowers on bottom. I did not take before picture but the yarn was bright white.

There was so much interest in my sun dyeing; I figured I would write it up. I harvested goldenrod – about as much as would fit into the large glass jar I used the dye in. Then added hot water and set it out in the sun. The other color was a combo of marigolds and these volunteer sunflower-like flowers that are growing in my yarn. I did the same to them. I got both jars going early in the morning. About noon, the water had started to color and I added yarn that I had pre-mordant-ed with alum. I left the yarn jars in the sun, and chased the sun around the yard a bit. I left the yarn in the solution overnight. The next morning I allowed the yarn to partially dry then rinsed by soaking in warm water for 30 minutes then set it to dry completely. This was commercially spun mohair.

have fun dyeing - Julia

Welcome to our blog

Hello, I am Julia the newsletter editor and historian for the Spindle and Dyepot guild, New Berlin, Wisconsin. We are trying this out to see how our members like it and maybe you will like it too! Several other people from the guild will be posting on here and hopefully it will become a useful resource.

The above picture is from a recent program we had. Each of us two home seven numbered samples of different breeds and spun them up, we had descriptions of the sheep breeds we received and had to try to figure out which sample was what breed. Here is the view from my wheel. I have a Ladybug wheel and have been spinning for about six years.