Ah, the Christmas Time of Year...

Okay, I've never been a fan of this time of year and really feel a little freaked out with the stress surrounding December plus some lovely extras from other aspects of life that we could all have done well with out! But I'm sure it'll all work out...
...it usually does.
Anyway, I have been busy, mostly with stuff that doesn't matter much.
I've taken a new photo of the dyed ball of yarn I plied on my wheel so the colours nicer.

And I finished washing, carding, spinning and plying the small bag of wool I got with my traveller. It's lovely and soft :)

Also I started drawing a concept drawing of a rock eating dragon-like bird thing from one of my story ideas. It's been sitting on my mantlepeice while I look at it and think what to do next and last night I broke out the art supplies!

I'm not the best painter, I'm not terribly confident in colour choice and I've never painted anything that was scales and feathers...or even all scales or all feathers! And I haven't photocopied the original so this could quite literally blow up in my face if I stuff this up but at least I've got the tracing of the original drawing. Wont help with the riders on it. They're freehand and all I have is a tracing of their placement, not their details.
But I like it. This is the first layer so I have to wait until it's really dry before I have another go at it.

So that's what I've been doing so far instead of christmas shopping which I can't do at the moment. Probably helping me stay sane. Roll on Christmas Day. The actual day I DO like!
Happy Knitting and Merry Christmas :)

I really am Knitting, not just Puddling away with Dye!

I really am! But I've got some more dyed yarn to show so don't make fun of me!
please?

Okay, I dyed this 2ply yarn that handles like cotton but clearly isn't. It certainly doesn't dye like cotton! But it's really a bit thin for knitting anything I might actually wear, like a shirt. So I balled up two of the skeins and plied them together on my Traditional Spinning Wheel. It worked out pretty well actually. If anything I wish I'd plied it a bit tighter. But otherwise it's great! About a 4ply thickness.

It has a slightly stonewashed look about the colour, which is a nice strawberry pinky/red. I balled it up and admired my handywork! I've got to get a better photo tomorrow, the colours not nearly this washed out but it's right near a window.

Now I just need to put it away with all the rest of my VAST collection of yarn until I come across something that seems to have it's name on it. It's not like I haven't got anything to go on with.
I'll be good now. I wont be dyeing anymore fibre for a little while...
...at least I don't plan to.
Happy Knitting :)

I love Second Hand Shops!

I've been looking for a crockpot so I can do some dyeing without using the same pans that I cook in and on Monday, I finally had some luck! The Drive-In Mart that we go to (a huge shop of just about anything and everything you can imagine!) had this dinky little crockpot!

There's no way my family can confuse this with our big normal one! A lady had bought it the week before but returned it because it wasn't really what she was looking for. Excellent for me! And just to further make my day, a large bag of blue roving and a smaller bag of some brown fleece, quite soft but very dirty. $20 for the lot, fibre and crockpot. SOooo Impressed.
Unfortunately I can't afford any dye at the moment and I'm beginning to wish very much that I had some of the professional powder dyes used by an awful lot of fibre/spinning enthusiasts!
Sigh, there's always something else to wish for.
Happy Knitting :)

Still Dyeing...but in a good way :)

Okay, still struggling with how much fixative to put in but I'm pretty pleased with this.
First I washed some fleece, carded it and seperated it into two 50g baskets, spun up each 50g onto a bobbin and then plied them together. Viola! One bobbin of 100g of plied wool!

Then I put the washed skein into two jars of dye like the first experiment but I put a heaped tablespoon of salt in with the quarter tsp of dye. It seemed to work although the green still doesn't climb into the skein anything like the pink does!

When I checked it after drying though, I noticed that the strands had felted together somehow. Whether that was a reaction to dyeing or handling and washing, I don't know so I put it on my Swift and re-skeined it up again.

Didn't come out bad at all. I actually really like the look of the colour now all the strands are mixed together and at least it shouldn't felt as bad next time it's washed.
All in all, very satisfied :)
I've also played with food colouring but it doesn't fix as well with salt. Pretty insipid :(

I'll have to try it with vinegar because that works REALLY well! I've been overdyeing some ordinary coloured yarn I rescued from a jumper and that's coming along brilliantly! I've already gone through 2 litres of vinegar! A few shots of experiments.

Very promising :)
Happy Knitting!

Let's try a little Dyeing (as in changing things colours, not the other...well, you get the idea!)

I've been wanting to try a little dyeing for awhile but nothing huge so I decided I'd experiment with a small skein of wool I'd spun from the bag I got with the Traveller Wheel.
I bought two sachets of Dylon powder dye in Vert Olive and Fuschia. I filled two glass jars with water, added a quarter teaspoon of each dye to one jar and added a quarter teaspoon of salt and gave them a stir.
Then I added the wool.

What I'd forgotten was I'd rushed washing this skein and it still had a bit of lanolin in it. Didn't realize it would mean the dye would have a hard time getting into all the fibres.

So...the first hour...... And the four hours later......

Then just before I went to bed for the night.....and in the morning!
Was a bit disappointed that it wasn't more vibrant but I thought, well, it's an experiment and just carried on!

So I took it out of the jars and gave it a good cold rinse, worried that the whole thing was going to wash out but very pleased when it didn't! I actually quite liked the more muted shades of the pink, green and white.
I washed in warm water next and washed it properly so all the lanolin was out. I didn't lose any of the colour which I was also pleased with and got this beautiful soft skein of delicately coloured wool!

Then I knit it on 5mm needles with 45 stitches into a rectangle, felted it a little in an ordinary cold rinse with some teatowels and Hey Presto!

I have the softest, cutest little coin purse I have ever possessed!! I'm going to look for a small pink zip to sew into the opening when next I'm in town. For now though, I just pick it up and rub it on my face. SOoooo soft!
I'm going to dye as much of this wool like this as I can spin and then make something epic with it. It deserves the royal treatment :)

Can you tell I'm a little chuffed?
Happy Knitting :)

Spinning, spinning...

I have been having a lovely time with my new Traveller Spinning Wheel!
Have spun up some experiments, all navajo plied (I haven't really had the patience to wait long enough to spin up two bobbins).

These two were the very first I spun. The blue had been a single on one of the bobbins that came with the Wheel and the red is some roving I bought when a local craft store closed down. The red is a lot softer than the blue.

Next I started to make my way through the bag of fleece I got with the Wheel. It is pretty dirty but still so soft! It's been quite a long time since I've had to card my own wool since I've spun mostly from rovings of late. I'd forgotten how unpleasant it can be! Bits of skin off my knuckles from the flick brush and sore hands and wrists! But in the end, all worth it. I'd washed the fleece bits before spinning but they were still a bit tacky so after I'd spun it up I sprayed it with stain remover that specialises with removing grease and then put it in a warm bath. So much dirt came out of that last wash! Now it's lovely ans, not tacky at all and lovely light cream colour!

I'm very pleased with these three experiments and I'm washing more fleece bit by bit so I can keep carding and have lots of fluffy wool to spin when I have a chance. I'm thinking of maybe knitting with the three and making a felted pouch or bag-thing with them. The blue really isn't wearable and neither is the red, really and there's not enough of any of them to make something substantial.
Oh well, so much fun. I'll just keep knitting the socks, the shawl and whatever else I've got on the go at the moment and quietly make my leisurely way through the whole garbage bag of fleece, confident that there is no real hurry.
Happy Knitting :)

And We SCORE!!!

I went into one of Jordan's favourite second hand stores today because he said there was a spinning wheel and, ever interested in all spinning wheels, I ventured in to take a peek. It was another Ashford Traditional like mine but I couldn't see the price so I went to the proprietor and asked, "How much is the spinning wheel?" and he replied "Oh, they're both $85 each."
Both?
You mean there's another one I haven't seen yet?
Sure enough, tucked away between a couple of other oddments was this sweet Ashford Wee Peggy


complete with 5 bobbins, a couple of brushes,


and a large bag of soft fleece...

for $85!

I've always wanted one of these because they are much more compact than the Traditional and easier to move around if you want to go to spinning events. I bought it and figured since I'll be getting extra work while Emma our Pharmacist is on holidays for the month of November it was a worthy purchase.
Now I have two spinning wheels! I feel so decadent!!!