Carding a Sweater's Worth (again)

Today I carded 10 1/2 batts of mixed color and 1 batt of a dark purple. This is all for a sweater that I plan to make in the fall. I want to spin this right now, but will hold off since this is suppose to be a spinning project for August.

These batts are a blend of 5 colors: dark purple, light purple, bright magenta, a dull magenta and a brownish rose color. I carded each color separately once, then carded large strips together so as not to make it too blended (muted). I think they will spin up in an interesting way.

Fiber Prep Time

I'm going to spend the next few weeks prepping all my fleece so they will be ready to spin. Why? Because I'm moving back to Seattle. I'm not sure where I'll be living there, but there's no guarantee that I'll have the space to process a whole fleece. I might end up in an apartment or townhouse or someplace without the space to wash a big stinky fleece. We will see. Life is always an adventure.

The other factor in why I'm processing all my raw fleece now is I'll need something to spin while I'm in Montana without my family. My husband and kids are going out to Seattle 3-4 weeks before me because my husband starts his new job in August. I, however, will still be working in Montana until The first week of Sept. I wont be too busy with work so I'll have a lot of time to spin.

I don't really like the idea of storing raw fleece for a really long period of time, so there's another reason to get everything processed. So I'll be blogging about washing and carding this week...if you're in to that.

Sitting at the Computer

I can't find my camera so I haven't posted anything lately. Taking photos of yarn is more fun that writing about it, so I'm lost without my camera. While sitting at my husband's computer, combing wool, and listening to pod casts, I realized there was a build in camera. So I snapped a shot right there and then. My new profile pic is of my recently dyed purple (yes, purple again) locks. Since next to the computer is where I've been doing my fiber prep, I thought I'd take a moment to share my favorite knitting and spinning pod casts. PLEASE tell me if you know of any spinning pod casts other than the one mentioned below.

Favorite (only?) Spinning Pod cast: Yarn Spinners Tales

Favorite Knitting Pod Cast(sometime they actually talk about knitting): Lime and Violet

Absolutely do not try this...

I got this idea that I'd make a 3-ply novelty yarn out of slubby singles. And here's the novelty: I'd dye the singles before I plied them.

After I plied them I planned to over-dye the yarn so it would have a multi-color effect. One of the singles was white and I was thinking that this would pick up the true color of the over-dye...

but that's not the effect I got. Absolutely do not try this with such a dark over-dye. It took the contrasting colors completely away. So that's one experiment that failed. (Quite a lot of time involved!)

This experiment seems more promising. I blended gray Shetland, black merino top, and silk scraps together on my drum carder.

I've only spun one bobbin of singles so far, but the effect of the colorful silk threads on the gray wool looks interesting.

a little update

I forgot what kind of wool I used for the blue batts, but this is what I've been spinning.

Over the Memorial Weekend I worked on some Cormo that had been sitting in storage. I had washed it lock by lock last summer, but it didn't get clean and remained very dirty and sticky. I washed it again and hand pick out almost all of the vegetable matter. The batts are super dense and turned out pretty nice.

One last photo from the Fiber Fair: a linen skirt. Puffy Mondaes out of Nampa, Idaho had a booth at the fiber fair and this is one of the items they were displaying. I love it. You can find the pattern on their website.

Scraps

The fiber on the left is silk scraps, apparently from a factory floor. The fiber on the right is recycled denim cotton. I purchased these at the fiber fair last weekend. My stash is growing!
I don't really have any cohesive ideas to blog about right now. I've got several project going---all unrelated. And more fiber fair photos on the way...

Snake River Fiber Fair

There's so much to tell. The Snake River Fiber Fair was awesome. Great classes and plenty of vendors. Where do I start? Well, I bought a full Romney fleece.

I took a class on combing. The instructor, Lynn Ruggles, brought in about 10 pairs of combs and several types of wool for us to try.

What an opportunity! She even taught us to blend with combs and we experimented with all the sample fibers she brought.