Dyet Yarns: Adventures in Fiber » spring

Straight From the Sheep

Nuri — Wed, 02 May 2012 18:04:16 +0000

This weekend will be the anniversary of my first adventure with fleece. It’s hard to believe it’s only been one year, especially looking at the collection of fleece I have now. (We won’t speak of that because we’re pretending it’s not a problem.)

The Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival opens the fiber festival season, and though I’m sad not to be going this year (it’s exams, ugh) I can look back at the results of last year’s festival with amazement. A friend and I bought a tri-colored Jacob fleece to wash, pick, card, spin, and knit into semi-matching sweaters. For Rhinebeck. Which happens in October. That means we gave ourselves a timeline of 5 months to get the entire project done.
First we had to lay out the fleece and take out any remaining bits we didn’t want. It was pretty well skirted already, but we pulled out a few second cuts.

Then we separated all the colors out, since we were planning to spin them separately.

We bagged up the fleece into mesh bags for washing, which took several rounds of hot, soapy water and rinsing…

…and then spread out the clean, wet wool on old screen doors to dry in the sun.

After lots and LOTS of picking through the fleece to remove bits of vegetation and dirt, we carded up the various colors on my bitty drum carder! The fiber was amazingly soft for a primitive breed.

During July (Tour de Fleece!) we spun the batts up into various colors of yarn.

Right after the end of July, we both cast on our sweaters. We DID finish them before Rhinebeck! And the weather was perfect for us to wear them so we could be sweater twins.

The pattern is Quadrants (Rav link) from Knitter’s Magazine. We both altered it a bit to fit our individual needs, but for the most part it’s an easy knit that produces a lovely sweater if you have some yarn you want to feature.

After this experience, I was completely hooked on processing fleece myself. I love washing wool! Maybe it’s just the lanolin fumes or the resulting soft hands, but it’s a very zen activity. I highly recommend trying it out! Be warned; starting down this path may result in a downward spiral into fiber preparation tool madness.

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

New Spring Colors!

Nuri — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:10:44 +0000

It’s spring and everything is blooming outside. It’s the perfect time to make some bright spring colors! I’m not a huge fan of pastels, so my colors are pretty bright. I’ve got some gorgeous purple that I’ll be adding soon, too.

On the left we have Nuclear Bunny, a colorway of bright greens on a mix of Angora, Lambswool, and Nylon. Angora resists the straightening process wholeheartedly, so it’s still a little wavy. On the right is a Silk and Cashmere blend that is incredibly soft and strong. It’s a laceweight semisolid with some speckles of burgundy, and I’m sure it would make an absolutely gorgeous FO!

The wrist is doing better, although I am being very conscious not to stress it too much. Unfortunately my back flared up last weekend and is only just now getting back to normal. It was terribly frustrating having to sit still and not being able to knit! I cheated a little and did some mindless crochet work…I don’t even like the kerchief I made, and it was really cheap acrylic yarn, so I might just get rid of the FO. It did help me avoid going (more) crazy, so I don’t mind too much.

I was able to do a little more work on my Interlude Lace Wrap, since I’m using size 9 needles. I’m about 80% done with that project!It will be the first thing I block with my new KnitPicks blocking mats, so I’ll post about how it goes.

My next dyeing project is a sweater’s worth of white wool/cashmere blend. I’m excited to get started with it!

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

The Sauce, It Burns Us

Nuri — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:08:57 +0000

This weekend was very productive! I got in the mood to do some spring colors on Friday night. I overdyed some fluffy lime angora/wool into a variegated mix of spring greens and then divided a batch of lovely white lace weight silk/cashmere blend in half and did two skeins of salmon pink with burgundy flecks and two skeins of variegated fuschia-purple-teal. I can’t wait to get them all skeined up to see the colors mix! Yay spring!

On a less-successful note, I tried to make chili last night. The chili itself came out great, but I learned a valuable lesson…always add the beans BEFORE the giant can of tomato sauce! You see, I added a large can of sauce to the browned ground beef in my pot. This basically resulted in a pot of very liquid sauce. Anyone who has ever cooked spaghetti sauce on the stove knows that you have to keep it covered or the bursting bubbles will send little dollops of sauce flying everywhere.

Well, this was a large (tall) pot! I didn’t think the sauce would be able to jump the 12 inches to get out of the pot, much less make it 2 more feet up that wall. BOY, was I wrong. Apparently tomato sauce doesn’t like to be hot and crowded, because it was hell bent on getting out of that pot. It started exploding all over, and as I reached over to turn down the burner, POP! …And now I have blisters on my arm.

They certainly make knitting and crocheting interesting. Every time the yarn or fabric brushes against them I am reminded of why we always add the beans first.

Dyet Yarns blog posts by Adrian "Nuri" Steinhauer are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.