Saturday, September 26, 2009

My Finished Experiment

I took the photos of the alpaca batt now that it is dry.

Alpaca Batt 1 Alpaca Batt 3

Alpaca Batt 2

The color is more purple than it looks in the pictures. The flash made it look pink. The third picture is closest to the real color. You can see the original color of the fiber near the long end of the batt in the first and third photos. The batt isn't felted or flat as it looks in the pictures. If you pick it up, it's nice and fluffy. I tested a corner to see if it would draft easy and it does. There are 2 layers so I can get nice long color repeats. The plan is to spin each layer seperately nice and thin. The ply will either be Navajo or 2 ply to maintain the colors. It's already telling me it wants to be something lacy.

Also included is a photo of the Border Leicester locks you can see peaking out at the top of the second photo above
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Border Leicester locks

This experiment was a lot of fun and I plan to dye some more of the batts at a later time. Right now, I'm in the mood to dye some Halloween colored yarn or fiber.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

"Ditto" is Started.... Dye Experiment... Craft room Pictures ...

My Shur'Tugal socks have been finished for a couple of weeks now. This means I was on the hunt for a travel project. I decided to venture away from having a sock as a travel companion for a little while.

After finally washing the yarn I had spun back in February and April, I started the "Ditto" cardigan sweater by Berrocco. It's free pattern and worked in one piece until you get to the sleeves. After you knit the sleeves, you attached them while working the yoke. For now, this will be my travel project until it gets too bulky to carry around. The yarn enjoyed hanging out in the back yard drying.

Wintechog Coopworth drying in the sun

Today, was spent in my dye craftroom. I have some alpaca which was processed as batts. I wondered if it was possible to dye the fiber since it was in this form. Well, if I didn't try I wouldn't find out. So, I took a layer, wrapped it in tulle, pre-soaked it, then laid it out on the plastic to dye. After dyeing and wrapping, it went into the steamer. It was a very tight fit, but just made it. I did take some pictures of the process. :

alpaca batt 2 ready for dyeing Alpaca batt 3 Alpaca batt 4 pre steam Alpaca batt 5 steaming

The bottom layer of the steamer was some Border Leicester locks I had dyed up as well.

I'll post some pictures of the fiber once it's dry in a few days. I just hope I don't have a big piece of pretty felt.

I also took a couple of pictures of part of the craft room. One is some of the bins and sink; the other is my waist high worktable Pat built me.

basement craftroom 2 bins basement craftroom 3 worktable