Late Night Fiber Dyeing!

FINALLY! I was able to get some fiber dyeing done late last night and finished up early this morning. I have been so swamped with Rubber Stamp orders that my spinning, dyeing, and knitting have all taken a back seat to stamp carving. Not only was I able to accomplish a good batch of dyeing last night, but Friday night I was able to spin and ply 120 yds of fingering weight yarn in a Mohair/Angora that I blended up myself on my Fancy Kitty. I am going to make another Mohair Angora batt today and spin a bit.

But enough about that, let's get back to the dyeing you say? Well. I have a new little FELTING PROJECT KIT (more on that later) that I am putting together to sell in my Michigan Spinning shop and so I dyed up a whole bunch of corriedale wool that I have been stockpiling. My felting wool is basically the leftover bits from the combing/carding part of processing my raw corriedale. I do alot of needle felting and I don't like to waste any fiber. There may be small bits of VM in this fiber, but I hand card and pick it after dyeing to remove as much as I can.

I use Greener Shades Dyes for my fiber dyeing. I really like them. They come in 9 colors and I am like a mad scientist when I am dyeing and always mixing colors and trying to create different shades and vibrancy of color. I am very pleased that I was actually able to get 2 shades of gray from the black this time. Black has a red/blue undertone and sometimes I end up with purplish or blue tinted purple, but this time I think I got it right with the black. YAY!

My college age daughter was watching me dye and in response to my happiness over achieving gray she said rather sardonically

" all these colors and your jumping for joy over gray?" 

I am really excited when I am able to achieve a new color or shade of a color and so YES, this gray had me dancing and leaping about the kitchen like a crazy person. Maybe next time I will try for BLACK! I hesitate to dye for black because I know it is hard to achieve. I do keep natural black on hand in other fiber breeds such as Alpaca, Icelandic, Black Welsh Mountain, and I just got some Shetland from a friend. But I would like all the fiber in the kit to be the same kind, so I will either have to dye for black or find some natural black corriedale wool somewhere out there.

Once this wool is dry, I will hand card it into batts, pick out any remaining VM and then divide it up for the FELTING PROJECT KITS.  Still can't tell you what they are. You will have to remain in suspense until I get them all put together! No Hints......and No Peeking!

I still have more of this corriedale washed and ready for flick carding. Now that I have gotten a bunch of the felting wool ready, I need to get back to preparing the spinning wool again. It is a never ending process. But I love it nonetheless.

I think after I spin up some more of this Mohair/Angora yarn I may try my hand at dyeing skeins too. Stay tuned for that.

Once I get the FELTING PROJECT KITS put together I am going to do an instructional video for my YouTube channel showing step by step assembly of the project. I will post a link when everything is ready.

Happy Felting!

OOPS!Before I go I must share with you the pics of my new little baby bunnies. They are both 
German/English Angoras (mostly English, their daddy has an unknown amount of German in him and mommy is ALL English) They are only 6 weeks old and the cutest lil bundles of fluff I have ever seen!
 

Bashful Handspun Yarn

I am so excited! I just sold my first handspun skein on my new Michigan Spinning Etsy Shoppe! I purchased this Merino Alpaca Fiber from Jehovah Jireh Farm at the recent Fiber and Animals Fest held right here in Marshall on June 12th.

I call it Bashful and it was single spun on my Kromski Minstrel and measures 271 yds at 12wpi and now it's SOLD! YAY!

I am still working on Revamping the Studio. No pics yet, it is still a mess, but there has certainly been some progress. I hope to have it all completed tomorrow night, but we'll see what happens.

Still working on Stamp Orders. Every day brings more orders in and I am very thankful for each and every one and for the Lord's blessing and provision.

Lord willing, I will have some time tomorrow to card some new batts and add some more items to Michigan Spinning on Etsy.

Have a good night :)

Revamping the Studio!

Spontaneous Combustion Batt 5.6 ounces! This is the one batt I didn't sell at the Festival

So I spun it up myself and will share some pics of it in tomorrow's post.

I realize I haven't blogged in a while and I promise to rectify that shortly. When I first started my blog I had envisioned writing daily posts and then it dwindled down to weekly posts, and now sadly I am lucky to post once a month.

Well, I am making a commitment that I will blog everyday from here on out. You are my witnesses, and I expect you to hold me to it and call me out if I fail to follow thru! It is a wonderful thing to be able to share the projects and accomplishments of the day, as well as brainstorming sessions, new projects and patterns, dreams and goals for future endeavors with all of you. Currently I am reorganizing my Studio to fit all of my new Vintage Fabrics and supplies as well as to set up a fiber prep station for carding my batts and storing my raw and dyed fibers. I will share some pics of the new set-up tomorrow.

I am extremely excited to be starting 2 new business ventures this month. My Michigan Spinning store is up and running on Etsy and soon will also be accessible at www.michiganspinning.com and I just opened a vintage inspired shop on Etsy called Sew Simply Vintage where I will be selling handmade aprons, household linens, baby linens and various other vintage and vintage inspired items.

My Star Box Shop is still going strong and will now be devoted to handcarved stamps and paper crafts only. I will be submitting some new stamp designs to The Spotted Box sampler box for July so be sure to check it out!

On the fiber front, I will be a contributor to July's Phat Fiber Sampler box as well. I am ecstatic over that and hope to send in enough samples to get a sampler box of my very own! We'll see if I can manage 50 samples this month. Expect to see samples from Michigan Spinning frequently in the Phat Fiber Sampler Box as I am determined to join in every month.

My first Fiber Festival event was on Saturday June 12th and went over pretty well. My cousin joined me, and I am thankful she did because I was not 100% ready for the event and my booth would have been a pitiful display without her. I did sell what I had, but I wish I was able to accomplish more in time for the show. The small success has encouraged me though, and my next show will be very well stocked. I spun up 4 skeins of yarn from Saturday to Monday and I am currently knitting with one, and the other 3 are going up for sale on the Michigan Spinning Etsy shop, so check them out.

On the home front, the family and I went out to pick strawberries at a local farm yesterday and so now I have 9 quarts of strawberries in my kitchen just waiting to become freezer jam, strawberry syrup, shortcake topping and maybe even a pie! It is way too hot, 90 degrees, to stoke up the stove today, so I am going to process all my strawberries bright and early tomorrow morning! I will definitely share some pics at the end of the day :)

Next post: Strawberries, New Studio Space, Carded Batts, Current Knitting projects, new yarns...............just for starters!

Wonderful Wool! Dyeing to Spin!

MY NEW KROMSKI MINSTREL! YAY!

My very first spinning wheel arrived on Friday afternoon and I gleefully assembled it and started spinning - yarn pics to follow at end of post. I am so excited to finally have a wheel. I am getting ready for my first Fiber Fest in June and so I really needed this wheel to spin up yarns for the show and to sell on My Etsy.

I also purchased my first Fancy Kitty Kitten Carder. This is the fine 90/120 carder, and I also purchased an auxiliary swift in the Medium cloth as well for carding some textured art batts. I am so excited. My auxiliary swift will arrive on Monday and then I will be carding batts like crazy!

This is my first hand dyed, hand pulled roving. I call it RARE EARTH, because when I saw the colors the first words out of my mouth were "Wow, it so earthy!" I also washed and prepped this fiber from the raw state. It is from a 80/20 Corriedale/Sussex mix breed whole fleece purchased from a local farm.
This is the very first yarn I have spun on my new wheel. It was made using the RARE EARTH hand dyed roving. I also added in some ribbon shreds and some ribbon roses. I just love it. I know I am just going to get hooked on spinning art yarns!

Here's a close-up!

And this is the roving I used. I had 2 batches of this dyed up for a total of 4.2 ounces. The final skein is 4.4 oz and 124 grams.

Here is the very first Batt I carded on my friend's Fancy Kitty before I purchased my own. I used the same Corriedale Sussex fiber, only this was the leftover bits from flick carding locks, and from pulling the rovings. I spun it up on my drop spindle and have not taken pics of the finished yarn yet.

This is the fiber I used to make the Batt above.

This is a pic of all the fiber I dyed that day. I dyed all this in about 30 minutes in between morning and evening service last Sunday.

Well, that's all I have time for right now, I can't wait to share some more Fiber Fun with you all. I plan to make some spinning and carding videos for my YouTube Channel once I get my drum carder on Monday. So STAY TUNED!

Jacob Sheep

Isn't this the cutest little sheep ever!

This is a Jacob Lamb and the photo is courtesy of the Bide a Wee Farm located in Newberg OR. Check out their website for more photos and additional info on this rare breed.

I only recently heard about Jacob Sheep while browsing for spinning fiber on Etsy. I became very intrigued by them when I read that they were believed to be the very line that was raised by Jacob in biblical times , hence the name Jacob Sheep.

I didn't give this much more thought until this morning when I was doing my bible study and got caught up reading in Genesis. Next thing I know I am reading in Genesis 30;30-48 where Jacob is telling Laban to give him his wives and children and let him go. He had served Laban 7 years for Rachel's hand but was married to Leah her older sister by trickery and then worked another 7 years to gain Rachel's hand as well. Both women bare him children and after Joseph was born he approached Laban and asked that he let him go with his family. Laban didn't want him to leave because the Lord had blessed him greatly because of Jacob, but said ,v28 "and he said, Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it"

v29 - And he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how thy cattle was with me.

v30 - For it was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increased unto a multitude; and the Lord hath blessed thee since my coming: and now, when shall I provide for mine own house also?

v31- and he said, What shall I give thee? and Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me any thing: if thou wilt do this thing for me , I will again feed and keep thy flock.

v32 - I will pass through all thy flock to day removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire.

(so this will be Jacob's flock in payment for his work, all the spotted and speckled and brown animals found among Laban's flock)

v33 - So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me.

v34 - and Laban said, behold, I would it might be according to thy word

v35 - and he removed that day the he goats that were ringstreaked and spotted, and all the she goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hands of his sons.

v36 - And he set 3 days journey betwixt himself and Jacob: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks.

v37 - and Jacob took him rods of green poplar and of the hazel and chestnut tree; and pilled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

v38 - and he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.

v39 - and the flocks conceived before the rods and brought forth cattle ringstreaked, speckled and spotted.

v40 - and Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstreaked and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle.

Genesis 31:7-9 gives greater insight into how Jacob received his cattle of Laban.

Jacob is talking here to his wives Rachel and Leah

v7 - and your father hath deceived me and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me.

v8 - If he said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages, then all the cattle bare speckled: and if he said thus, The ringstreaked shall be thy hire; then bare all the cattle ringstreaked

v9 - Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father and given them to me.

Isn't this exciting! To know that God has sustained this breed through the generations and we have the proof of it in his word, telling us exactly how Jacob acquired his flock. The Bide a Wee Farm site states that" several breeds of sheep can produce spotted lambs, but Jacobs are the ONLY breed which remain spotted for life."

It is also said that the fleece of the Jacob sheep is highly sought after by handspinners and that you can yeild 3 colors from one fleece.

This is certainly one fleece I would love to add to my summer spinning.

Raspberry Tweed

Here is a little bit of eye candy for the yarnies and fiber addicts (myself included), who frequent the blog and to the new visitors out there WELCOME! and enjoy :)

First off I must share the Antique Skein Winder I scored for $15 when I went to a local antique shop with my Grandma, Aunt and Cousin. I found this wedged behind a couple of old shovels and a wooden crate. At first glance I wasn't sure if it was what I thought it was, but when I heard it was only $15 on sale that day, I bought it on the spot. I used it already, to wind up the skein of Raspberry Tweed I finished spinning this weekend.

This is a skein I just listed on my Etsy today! I spun it up and plied it all on my top whorl drop spindle made by spinsanity on Etsy. It was spun from an Angora Merino batt I purchased from Wiley Woolies at the Fiber Fest at Cornwells Turkeyville this past fall. It is 294 yds of a heavy worsted / light bulky weight yarn weighing in at 5.4 oz / 150 grams. I am in a little personal competition with my cousin who fills her spindle to such capacity I have yet to surpass her in total yardage of a single skein. I thought for sure I would do it with this skein, but her last skein was 295 yds! I missed it by 1 yd! She also told me that she found some extra fiber after plying her skein and if she had been able to add that in she was sure she could have hit 300 yds in a single skein. WOW! Her success with spinning keeps me striving to excel in my own abilities. Someday I would like to own a wheel to make spinning faster, but there is a real sense of satisfaction knowing that this HUGE skein of yarn was spun up on a humble little stick and whorl!

Now that spring is here, I am pulling out all kinds of roving and fiber that has been stored away during my winter knitting phase. The Holidays really wiped me out with all the knitting they required. Now I can get back to a relaxed pace of spinning, knitting and sewing. Currently what is keeping me busy is spinning and knitting, sewing only falls in here and there when I get a free moment from everything else.

So currently, almost all of my spindles have fiber on them. I am spinning up some more flax. I have 4 ozs of flax fiber that I spun just a small amount of last summer, I navajo plied it, and then it sat around in a tiny skein (I think about 90 yds) for this past year while I was a gloomy gus, disappointed with how much it resembled a bunch of sticks in color and texture. Well, I finally pulled it out and decided I was going to knit something with it and see if it would really soften up like I have read and been told, that it would. Surprise Surprise! I am knitting a napkin, yes.....a napkin in a basic stockinette with a garter stitch border this yarn has gotten softer and softer the more I knit with it. I can only imagine how much softer it may get once the napkin is done and I launder it a few times. So I have been encouraged by this little bit of knitting to spin up the rest of the flax and maybe make something a little bigger than a napkin with the finished yarn.

I am also spinning a bit of australian merino wool that I Hand dyed when I was visiting with my cousin a few weeks ago. You can see her hand dyed rovings on her blog at Holly Marie Knits. Here is just one of mine currently on the spindle. We have just been practicing our dyeing with some Wilton Icing Dyes, but I plan to purchase some Greener Shades Dyes for my next batch of fiber dyeing coming up in a couple of weeks.

And....I am just starting to spin a burgundy batch of Merino/Alpaca fiber I purchased from Jehovah Jireh Farm at last years fiber event at Cornwells Turkeyville in Marshall Michigan. My grandmother wants a wimple like the one I knit for my cousin and so I thought this would make a nice yarn for it if I spin it up lace weight. The pattern Ice Queen from Knitty.com

Well, I'd love to stay and chat a while more, but with all the photos this post has taken me longer than I anticipated. The new women's bible study with the ladies from my church starts tonight and I need to get a move on or I will be late! More updates to come later this week........(including some video of fiber dying and a knitting tutorial for one of my patterns)

Little Lace Shawl

I just had to share this little lace shawlette I made this weekend. I absolutely love it. After I finished spinning up my Summertime yarn, I wanted to find something small that might only use 1 skein of yarn and so I logged into Ravelry and started searching. What I found was a simple, easy to knit pattern for this little lace shawlette called 198 yds of Heaven designed by Christy Verity. This is a free pattern and you can download it directly from Ravelry. It is not really a beginner pattern, because it assumes the knitter has some prior experience with triangular shawls and their construction and so it does not give any directions for the sequence of knitting the repeats of each row. With a little help from my cousin Holly and some trial and error I was able to figure out the row repeats and once that clicked, I did not have any further trouble knitting the rest of the shawl. It is a little involved for the novice knitter, but I highly recommend it and you can always ask someone for help getting started on the row repeats to make sure you do it right. I am certain this will be my favorite shawl pattern forever, and I will knit them all year long, gift them to friends and family, and make them in colors to go with every season and every dress I own. They will be house shawls and church shawls, and just going out shawls. There will always be a reason for me to pick up some sticks and string and get to knitting another little shawlette.

This little shawlette is being gifted to a friend and I am delivering it to her personally when I visit her this afternoon:)

Summertime Yarn and Fibery Goodness!

This is my first foray into hand painting fiber. Forgive me if I use this term incorrectly as I am just beginning my journey into dyeing fiber for spinning. I have a short little video I will be uploading to YouTube that shows my dyeing process for this particular fiber. As this was my first attempt, I felted the fiber slightly during the dyeing process, I think it was the intense heat of microwaving that did it because I was very gentle with the fiber throughout the process. I really abhor microwaving. I have since thought of a new method of steam/heat setting the color on the stovetop that I will employ during my next batch of dyeing. I will let you know how it turns out.

For the fiber shown here I used Wilton's Icing Dyes, and I purchased small refillable plastic squeeze bottles for housing the dye mixture during dyeing. For this above roving, which is Lincoln Top that I purchased locally, I mixed 1/4 tsp of each of the following colors (green, lemon yellow, pink) in their own bottle with a TBS of vinegar and filled the rest of the bottle with warm water.

Then I laid approximately 4 oz of fiber (This one ended up being about 5.2 oz) in a snake pattern on the tabletop which I had covered with towels and sheets of plastic wrap. Then I proceeded to squirt the dye upon the fiber in a striping pattern, up and down vertically, alternating colors until I had used up all the dye. I then folded in the outer edges if the plastic wrap and starting at the top, I rolled the roving down towards my end of the table in a long tubelike fashion. when I had it all rolled up, I then circled the tube into a donut shape, put it in a glass dish and microwaved it for about 2-3 minutes. Then I let it cool before I unrolled it. The result is as you see above and below.

And this is what it looks like spun up into a yarn. I have not wrapped this yet to gauge its weight, I think it will be around a sport or worsted weight. The colors are more subdued than in the unspun roving. I really like this yarn. I have set the twist already and am just thinking of what I might knit with it. I call it Summertime, because it reminds me of fresh green grass, sunshine, and the shades of summer fruits like pineapple, honeydew, mango, papaya, watermelon and pink grapefruits. I could jump right through spring and into summer.... no problem:)

I ended up with more singles on one bobbin than the other, and so I spun the last little bit into its own small skein. The large skein is 189 yds and the small one is 52 yds, so 241 yds total. Not bad for about 5 oz of fiber. It should be enough for a simple little project.

I plan to check out Ravelry later today to see if something appeals to me. I want to start knitting with this over the weekend.

These are the rest of the fibers I dyed that same day. Each is approximately 4 ounces.

This one I call Peachy-keen. I used 1/8 tsp of pink and brown and mixed each in its own bottle with 1 TBS of vinegar and the rest warm water. (I used 2 bottles of each)

This one I call Calypso, and it was made using 1/4 tsp of aqua, 1/8 tsp aqua, 1/8 tsp of brown each in their own bottle with 1 TBS of vinegar and warm water to fill.

This one I call Eggplant, because as soon as I unwrapped it the purple just jumped out at me and I exclaimed, ooohh it looks like eggplant! This was made with 1/4 heaping tsp black, 1/4 tsp red, 1/4 tsp brown each mixed in their own bottle with 1TBS vinegar and warm water to fill. I was uncertain how this one would turn out because I knew the black would not really be black at all, I was amazed at the final results. The black turned shades of brown, purple and green and blended with the other brown and the red, and the red softened in spots into a soft mango color. This is my absolute favorite of all of them. I think I will spin this next.

I have traded some of my hand carved stamps for 16 oz of undyed merino roving. I hope to receive it within the next few days. I plan to purchase some new Greener Shades Dyes that I just discovered at Pancake and Lulu on Etsy. They come in 9 shades and can be blended to attain different shades and hues, and conform to the Organic Trade Association standards for Organic Fiber Processing.

I hope to do alot more dyeing in the future. I recently washed a whole Icelandic natural white (ecru) fleece that I purchased this fall at a fiber festival in the hopes of doing some dyeing once I get it combed and prepared.

I also just finished washing a natural black Icelandic fleece that I bought at the same festival. I have to comb this one too. I plan to sell some and spin some for my own use. We will see how it turns out. It has quite a bit of veggie in it still, little pieces of grass and straw and a bramble here and there. It is a ram fleece and it had to go through 4 hot water soaks in the tub before my house stopped smelling like a barn.

Novelty Yarns - The Drop Spindle Method

Well, Sorry I have not been updating the blog lately. I spent the summer at my parents in SC and just returned home in September and I have been swamped trying to get all my things put away and catching up on Etsy orders and making ready for all the holiday spinning and knitting. I should be posting regularly now that I have gotten back into a normal routine.

ALSO......I have started a podcast. My first episode was in July, and I just uploaded Episode 2 last week. You can find the podcast and show notes here and it is also available for free download on iTunes. Just type in Spinsterknits in the search bar and you will find it.

Since returning home I have made some new friends at a fiber festival I attended in the beginning of October. I now meet with the ladies every Monday night for spinning and socializing. They all spin on a wheel, but sadly I am still a spindle spinner until I am able to purchase my own wheel. I did test a couple at the festival though. I am really liking the Ladybug wheel.......ALOT!

One of the girls I spin with on Mondays has the book "Intertwined - The Art of Handspun Yarn, Modern Patterns, and Creative Spinning". You can find it here I was able to browse it briefly on 2 occasions and finally decided to request it from my Library. It came in on Thursday and I am in Total and Complete Love with this book. Some of the yarns and projects are a little too OUT THERE for my taste, but the techniques are fantastic. I am still reading the book and all the different step by step details of each technique, but the book is designed with the Spinning Wheel in mind and not really the drop spindle. I am determined that I can spin just as many interesting and unique yarns on the drop spindle as can be spun on the wheel so I opened up the book, pulled out my wools, fibers,bits and pieces of handspun yarns,and my hand carders and went to work making some CRAZY BATTS as described on pgs 64-67.

Basically, for the yarn pictured (total yield= 93 yds in 3 skeins), I made 22 mini crazy batts by loading one carder with some grey wool (my mother bought it at a festival as a mill carded batt and she has no clue what the fiber is, the farm she bought it from raises Icelandic sheep and Llamas, so its a 50/50 guess as to what it is), and then I laid out bits of leftover pieces of handspun yarns from other projects in green, teal, pink and orange. On top of that I added pieces of hand dyed yellow and watermelon colored German Angora, and then topped that off with some hand dyed light blue Corriedale wool. Then I hand carded the mass onto the empty carder and then onto the other carder before pulling it off and rolling it up, ready for spinning. The idea is to lightly card the fibers so that they retain their lumpy, bumpy,unmixed textures. Then you spin it up fast with minimal drafting allowing the fibers to clump and shape into a thick and thin kaleidoscope of color. To finish I plied the yarn with a silver metallic crochet thread. I really like the end result and have already made some sketches for a new pattern I am designing especially for this yarn. I will be working on that project this week.

Now,some tips on the spinning process. Because you are spinning these batts up with minimal drafting it takes a little time to get the feel for the technique. A wheel will continue to spin as you treadle, but the spindle doesn't spin as long when you are barely drafting and basically overspinning the fiber. You have to keep a closer eye on the spindle so it doesn't change direction and undo all your hard work, and it is easier when you wind on every 12 inches or so instead of spinning until your spindle touches the floor. I spun up all 3 skeins in just a few hours. They were much faster to complete then I expected.

I will definitely get some pics and maybe even some video of the entire process for anyone who is interested in a step by step demonstration of how I made this yarn.

Over the next 2 weeks I plan to try out several more techniques in this book with my drop spindle to see how they turn out. Even though some of the projects are a nothing at all like items I would actually wear or yarn I would actually use, this book is a MUST HAVE on my Christmas list because the techniques can be used to make a wide variety of yarns to fit any person's style.

Happy Spinning:-)