Fibercrack

A little spinning from yesterday.  It’s only about 11 yds, but the important part is that this is from the Wensleydale from the other day, dyed in these absolutely awesome shades of purple, combed, and spun up from there.   There’s been house guests and craziness going on around here lately that’s meant I haven’t had the time to pull out the carder, but this lovely stuff is going to have me dragging it out soon enough because MMMMM.  Want to spiiiiiiiiiiiin!

Yesterday’s spinning.  I had an idea for what I want to do with it, so I decided to just do a softly-plied 2 ply and I’m pretty darn happy with it.  

Koriand’r

• 216 yds
• worsted spun
• 2 ply, soft
• intended project: 198 yds of Heaven

So while at Maryland Sheep & Wool, I didn’t so much buy a full fleece as a full cutting from one sheep.  At 1 1/2 lbs, there’s plenty of it and the stuff is gorgeous:  yearling Wensleydale, incredibly soft and really shiny and as you can see above, really nice spun up.  I did that right from the comb with just a few locks, spun in the grease since it already felt so clean!  I love love love it and I have to try and clean/dye some more!

This one’s a base I had some serious interest in because… well, it’s gorgeous stuff.  BFL + silk?  What’s not to like?  The colorway had to do with the fact that I’ve never done a lime-and-violet but I added my own little touches because I’ve always found lime-and-violet a little plain on its own.

Ultraviolet Octarine

• 80% BFL, 20% silk
• 425 yards
• 3 ply

Today’s dyeing is on ANOTHER of our possible MCN bases; honestly, I think they’re both really awesome in their own ways, but as with all things, there will have to be knitting up before any judgement is really made. The colorway is one that I kind of made up on the fly, thinking of an old Cracked article.  That said, I kind of love it to pieces (which is why the million and seven pictures).

The Alchemist’s Flames

• 380 yards
• 80%merino, 10%cashmere, 10%nylon

A fiiiiiield trip.  A fiiiiield trip.

Today, my partner-in-dyeing and I headed to Maryland Sheep and Wool, which was HUGE AND AMAZING AND FULL OF SHEEEEEEP.

I ended up grabbing a lovely pound and a half of Wensleydale fleece, a few beautiful tops that I’ve got to photograph with better lighting, and some Power Scour for fleece-processing.  I also grabbed a trindle spindle and two kinds of arm beads for great spinning; the thing spins GREAT and I much love the interchangeable-ness.

And so many animals.  SO MANY. And so many interesting shops and dyers.  It was AWESOME.

I’m sure I saw a few of you guys whether we realized it or not.  So if you saw a girl in a black shirt with a pokeball’d dragon on it hanging out with ‘now panic and freak out!’ shirted!girl, that was us!

The fleece is in the freezer at the moment (I’m paranoid ^_^;) and the tops are sitting in their bag until I can lift arms and do things.  For now, I’m exhausted and eating sushi.

Another trial base, this is some 2-ply BFL fingering weight.  I love the shine here, and I’m so happy with the color since it’s pretty much exactly what I was going for.  I heart trying new methods and having them work out!  So this is 

Sunset in Divinity’s Reach

• 380 yds
• 100% BFL wool
• 115g

…I really liked the Guild Wars 2 beta, what do you want?

Trying some new methods (as well as more of that new possible MCN base), this is Macaw, 383 yds.  Very squishy, though the dyeing method did require a second pass to give me the color I wanted.