Heather and Gorse Batts

I mixed red and blue in equal quantities to get a heathery color. The locks were flick-carded then drum added together, a layer of blue followed by a layer of red and repeat then the batt drum-carded three more times. A second batt consisting of flick-carded yellow  and white locks was drum carded once then carded with the heather side-by-side. 

Have to decide how to spin it - cross-ways or long-ways - giving short runs of color or longer runs of color when plied. Should be fun either way.

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A very Colorful weekend - lots of wool dying

My KoolAid sachets seemed to be solidifying and degenerating despite living in a shoebox in a drawer in the work room so I thought I'd better get ready to use them or else loose them. So I went started on a Friday and had pots on the stove until Sunday with fiber drying outside while the sun shone and in the porch when there were showers.
I added some dark grey Lanscape dye for blending on the drum carder and also some bright yellow and blue Eurolana dyed fiber also to blend at some later date.
These photos should remind me of my dyathon:
I use dater from the water button the the garden. This saves on using so much from the well and also is a much softer water. It has a mildly acid pH and I added to citric acid crystals to it to bring it down to around pH of 4. My well water is alkali and much harsher).

Washed Fleece and Kool Aid

Lemon Lyme in the Pot

Lemon Lyme drying outside

Strawberry Kool Aid being rinsed

Drying outside in the sun

Grape and a Landscape grey dye

Orange Kool Aid

The dyed fleece are piling up

The first fleece (L L) was a short staple, Suffolk-type

but the rest are Texel EasyCare cross fleece from my

sheep here

Eurolana blue and yellow dyes

First carded batt - stawberry

Lemon Lyme with strawberry batts in front

of the drum carder and lots of

Tropical Punch behind

The smell of "synthetic berries" has gone at last andI have plenty of carding to do !

Blue fleece to blue hat

The fleece I dyed blue and spun on the spindle (see post Blue Fleece Progresses), has become a blue hat.
The pattern is "Market Day" by Wei S. Leong and I'm pretty pleased with it.

Some details on in my Ravelry projects (oisin10708 - projects).

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iPhone gansey and coin purse

I've had a problem with change leaping out of the zipped pocket of my purse for some time. It's a great purse for credit cards and note but the plat zipped section is no good for coins so I finally got around to knitting a little purse for coins.
Lindy gave me a bag clasp some time ago and I dug it out. I also dug out the end of a ball of hand-dyed  hand-spun yarn I have a particular liking for to knit the purse body. The stitch pattern used  (Row 1 make 3, k3 together, Row 2 purl, Row 4 k3 together, make 3, Row 4 purl) make a fairly dense fabric with regular raised bumps, staggered between front rows. It knit up quickly and I don't think it needs any lining.

It disgorges its contents into my hand easily and hopefully will reduce the foostering time at the checkout.

The next little stash-buster is an iPhone gansey.
I dislike the bare screen on the phone, especially as it often shares a pocket with my car keys and, in addition, I noticed a little improvement in the temper of the sound the phone produces when it happens to lie under some knitting so I decided to knit it a little gansey/jacket.

The stitch for this is a twisted rib (Row 1 = p1, ktbl, Row 2 = k1, ptbl) which makes a fabric this stretches side-to-side but not much top-to-bottom.

I enjoyed making this pare over springfest :). 

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Wool nests

Flick carded and then drum carded locks from some of my sheep's  fleece which I washed and stored some time ago.
I'm flick-carding the locks then adding them to the drum carder to make a batt then dividing the batt in four and winding each quarter into a fluffy nest.

I'm looking forward to spinning these using short forward draw to make a semi worsted (though could be semi woolen - I confuse the two) later this evening.

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Yak and silk roving spun and plied

The 200 gms of yak and silk roving is now e-spun into a plied yarn.
I had intended to over-dye with a purple color but now that I see it, it has an interesting silvery hue - sort of slate color in some lights rather than a boring brown so I think I'll leave it as is.

There is about 363 yards of around 12 wraps per inch - a sport weight or double knit type yarn.
I expect it will knit with a lot of drape but it is soft and warm to the touch.
I imagine it as a shoulder wrap of some sort probably with some lace knitting involving larger holes and perhaps a crocheted edge…..could be a vest though or even long-armed gloves - but I think a wrap exploits its properties the best.
That's what I love about making new yarn - figuring out what it might become.


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Teaching Rufus to jump

Took a little time off to try to teach my red cat Rufus to do a little cat agility. Slow going - definitely different from training the dog but still interesting;

Little video on youtube or perhaps here:
 http://youtu.be/lgmRYgrYVH8