fiber follies.......

This is what I started spinning yesterday, some Polwarth I had dyed last year and set aside for myself. I've almost got half of it spun up. The second half I'll add some glitz, then when I ply the two I'll add a bunch of 'stuff' to make some art yarn. Don't ask me what I'll do with it but I'm going to have fun making it.

This is today's dyeing - 10+ pounds of Panda which is a blend of superwash merino/bamboo/nylon. It's lovely fiber to spin. I can't wait to spin samples of these to see how they spin up.

And these are small handspun samples of the merino/tussah I dyed last week. The pictures don't do them justice, they're really beautiful. My plan worked - dyed the roving many colors but when spun up it looks like beautiful tonal colorways - no striping in this roving. That's my hope for the roving above too - won't know until it dries and I can spin some samples.

I especially like the top two handspun samples, am considering keeping some of those for my own use.

Looks like a bumblebee!

My latest spinning project looks like a bumblebee! When I was dyeing 20 pounds of Polwarth I had had a 5.9oz piece of roving left (I weigh out 8oz lengths to dye) so I decided to play with the dyes. I took yellow and black and then mixed at least 8 containers of it varying the amount of each color starting at pure yellow, ending with pure black. I split the roving in half down the middle and spun each bobbin, then plyed so my resulting yarn goes from yellow to black. I ended up with approx 697 yards of fingering weight yarn (it's not washed yet so yardage may shrink a bit). I have no clue what it will eventually grow up to be........

More hand-dyed roving - Polwarth

I don't usually post all the pictures of the roving I've dyed other than on the drying racks but for lack of any other pictures here they are. This is all Polwarth, a merino/lincoln cross. I've spun a sample and it's lovely, soft, and springy like merino with the bit of sheen and added strength from the lincoln. Two braids are curerntly sitting in my spinning basket - two of the far right, second row from the top - I just love those purples, especially that red purple. And then below the chartreuse to black gradation which I dyed specifically for myself - there's only 6 ounces of that. I know this colorway probably repulses some but I love it! I'll divide the roving in half lengthwise, spin each and ply them together. Maybe it will end up in a scarf, who knows, that's a long way off. These will all start showing up in my etsy shop over the next couple of weeks.

On the home front - had quite a scare last night when Bailey, our golden, looked to have a seizure or some sort of episode. Of course, Sam was out of town on business last night so I was here alone. I called a friend for advice, then our vet who will answer calls until 10pm. Today Bailey is just fine like nothing happened. Am keeping fingers crossed that it's a one time event and doesn't become a regular occurance. Kids!