Fiber Musings

We found a squirrel in the house yesterday. The little, grey, fuzzy rodent was hiding behind the bookcase in the living room. It was a scene from a slap-stick schtick. Martin and I were running around the house with a broom and some towels, trying to herd the dang thing out the door.

The, e-hem, herding dog was cowering in the bedroom. After chasing this dang thing around the house (living room, kitchen, office…) it finally ended up in the bedroom, then the master bath. Mind you, the master bath in this house is more like a closet. Cozy for one person. Snug with 2. And when you add a terrified rodent into the mix, it’s a tad chaotic.

Martin’s first comment when we cornered it was, “Honey, here’s your cue to stand up on the toilet and start screaming.” After a venom filled look, pointed back in his direction, we got down to trying to trap it with the waste basket and towels.

Guess what? When that darn thing ran over my foot, I started squealing. Squealing like a girl-y. Sigh. Another self image shattered.

By the way, that fluffy tail was really pretty. I wonder what it would look like spun…

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When I first started spinning 2.5 years ago, I never realized all the different paths that this fiber pursuit would take me down, and all the wonderful people that I would meet along the way. I’m not talking just in the blog world, but the wonderful people I’ve met in various guilds that I’ve joined and the people I met at various shows and conferences. The fiber world has got to have some of the most diverse and interesting people I’ve ever met. The enthusiasm and the willingness to help a fellow fiber artist is absolutely amazing.

By the way, I found Norma’s blog entry today to be a great read. And she is right on with her observations.

I started this blog as a way of keeping track of my projects and experiments. I never envisioned that it would actually be read by anyone. In fact, I’ve gone out of the way to maintain some level of anonymity. (Have you ever wondered by you can’t find this site on Google? robots.txt is a good thing.) It’s not that I want to keep people out, I just don’t want people to have easy access. Sounds like I’m antisocial, doesn’t it? And in 2 years, I’ve never bothered to remove the robots.txt file.

Anyway, that’s a long way around to today’s entry. When I started spinning, I promised myself and Martin that (a) I did not intend to card my own fiber, thus would not need a drum carder, (b) I would never buy combs, (c) I don’t plan on dyeing my own fiber, and (d) I don’t intend to buy/process raw fleece.

Cough. Cough. Mumble. Um. Yeah. I did all the above. And some. And I didn’t intend to own more than one spinning wheel either.

Alright, what does all that have to do with the second part of today’s title? Well, dyeing is one of the paths that I took along the way. And I have to say, I love it. First, I love color. I’m fairly conservative when it comes to knitting with color, but I love color. And I love spinning a beautifully dyed roving. So, of course, I decided that I have to try my hand at dyeing. And I love it. And I love the variability and surprises that come with dyeing.

Please note. I will never be a threat to the professionals out there that sell their hand painted yarns and rovings. I bow to their sense of color and their ability to reproduce their color ways time and time again.

I can buy those. I dye because I enjoy creating something out of nothing. And often, I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to get at the end of the process. I like surprises. It’s like a little present to myself. Besides, if you have no expectations, you can’t be disappointed.

It is for this reason that I enjoy playing with natural dyes. Something from nothing (see apple prunings entry earlier this month). A surprise every time.

Chemical dyes are formulated to have predictable results every single time. And the colors are absolutely fabulous and vibrant. And, to me, instant gratification.

Natural dyes have quite a bit more variability. Change just a little variable, you’ll get a completely different result. Change the mordant, you get a lighter or a darker color. Change the pot you use. Change the temperature. Use a pre-mordant, mordant in the dye bath, or apply mordant after the dye bath, and you get different results. Infinite possibilities.

(Click on the thumbnails for larger pictures.) These silk rovings from Pastiche are excellent examples of variability in natural dyeing. As I mentioned in my original entry, it has beautiful blues, greens, amber, lavenders in the grey. Even though the dyer knew exactly what combination of natural dyes were used in producing this, she was never able to reproduce it again. It was just one of those things. (These 2 rovings were in the same dye bath, which is why they are similar.)

However, there is good news for the average natural dyers who wants to be able to reproduce a color way, time and time again. Michele Wipplinger has created a line of natural dyes called Earthues. They come with instructions and recipes for creating reproducible colors.

The color palette with natural dyes are more limited than with chemical dyes. For example, I have never seen a true green. You get can get yellow greens if you use iron. You can get blue greens if you overdye with indigo. But not a scream in your face Oregon Ducks green, never mind the neon lime green. What you get are more earthy colors.

It’s not good nor bad, just different.

With my amateur status and my slap dash ways, I will never get the exact colors. But I am happy with what I get. (If you are one of those people that really like precision, you can get reproducible colors with natural dyes. I’m just not that person.)

And playing with natural dyes has opened a whole new world for me. Walks around the neighborhood, office park, or hikes in the forests are now walks that are filled with possibilities. I wonder what color that tree/flower/nut/lichen will make?

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I’ve been working on this and that. Mostly that — not much fiber activities around here. But I did finish spinning this little skein of lace weight singles. It is 2 ounces and approximately 530 yards. I didn’t take a wraps per inch measurement, but I think it’s about 20+. I dyed this roving at my last session with my guild up in Seattle before moving down here, over a year ago.

I put a lot of twist into this yarn because the fiber is very fine, and I was worried about the fibers slipping apart. So, I had to block the heck out of it to get all the kinks out. There’s not a lot of spring left in this yarn, in it’s current state. Since it’s slated for a lace project, springy yarn isn’t really called for, right? This skein is headed over to Amy as a trade. Amy, please be kind in your critique.

I stayed up way too late last night, watching back to back Poirot movies on A&E. But that did give me a chance to rip out and finish this little chemo cap for Susan. It’s made with less than one skein of Calmer. Here’s the free pattern from Head Huggers.

I’ve been resisting the Calmer mania that hit the blog world this summer, but, oh-my-god, I now know what the fuss is about. It has got to be the softest, loveliest cotton blend yarn to work with. It should be great as a chemo cap.

If I thought Heirloom Breeze was nice to work with and wear, this make Breeze feel like a brillo pad. And, it doesn’t split nearly as much as all the other cottons that I’ve worked with. Okay, I know the calendar says fall, but I’ve just got to make a top or two out of this. After all, in this land of sunshine, I can’t face wool on a regular basis, even during the so called winters around here.

So, it’s to bed for me. Later, I will post about my experiences with natural vs. chemical dyes. I want to get one more sample batch in before I write about it.

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I finally took some pix of Kate. Here is the detail of the inside. As I might have mentioned, I knit the whole thing in one seamless piece. The neckline is short-rowed. I used 84 stitches for the neckline, 30(front)+15(L sleeve)+24(back)+15(R sleeve). Why does the front have 6 more stitches than the back? Because I stair-stepped the front neckline in 3 short row segments on each side (2*3 rows) which means the front has 3 fewer sets of double decreases than the back. Is this clear as mud? It just worked like magic. It was much clearer to me than the French instructions I downloaded.
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Martin and I were lucky to spend an hour or so in the company of Jimmy Carter this afternoon. The former president came by our office to talk to us about The Carter Center and just plain chat. What an amazing person. And he shared a bit of his humor, his take on the current election, and a little bit about this letter that he wrote to Zell Miller, and how we as individuals can make a difference. I repeat, what an amazing person!

Oh yes, you came here to read about fibers. The new batch of cutch dyed lincoln-corriedale is darker than the first batch. But stupid me changed two variables instead of just one at a time, so I don’t know which had the most impact. First, I re-scoured the wool in one hot soapy bath, followed by one hot rinse. Second, I premordanted the wool for about 36 hours in alum. So, I don’t know if it was the residual grease on the wool that was prohibiting the dye from taking, or whether premordant made the difference. But I will say that there’s still some grease in the wool, and a LOT of dye came out in the first rinse.

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