A few days ago, I pulled my last skein of handspun mohair off of my two yard Niddy Noddy and proceeded to dye all the handspun yarn.

 

If you’ve made ‘Sun Tea’ the process is similar, of course instead of tea (unless you’re using that to color the yarn) you use a dye.

I normally use natural dyes for my handspun yarn, but this time I used Wilton’s icing colors. It’s a food coloring, mainly used to tint icing. I used vinegar to set the color.

I will say that my handspun mohair yarn took the dye well and left the variegated pattern that I wanted. Listening to my daughter’s suggestion I went with an orange/copper base and I added a goldenrod yellow also. I have yellow undertones in my skin and I thought this would compliment it nicely.

 

A few evenings ago, I went outside and removed the handspun yarn from the glass jar. The water was warm, I rinsed off the water, removed the excess water into a towel and hung the yarn outside on a rack to dry.

 

The shimmer and the halo that mohair possess was still in the yarn. That’s good, it’s the main reason I chose mohair to complete the project for the knitting designer.

Now, the only thing left is to allow this to completely dry and then begin knitting. Unless of course… I want to overdye the yarn. We’ll see!

Part of my criteria (for choosing a farm to purchase sheared animal fiber) is to find people that treat their animals kindly and genuinely care about their overall well-being.
At this rate, it’s highly doubtful that I’ll have shaken out the dirt, picked off the large bits of vegetable matter, washed, cleaned, combed or carded all my animal fiber before autumn is finished. During my “down time” in between spinning yarn for the cape (that I’m creating for a knit designer) I’m starting to break down my cleaned fiber into bags.

The first picture shows a few of them. I’ve marked the breed and have included the farm on some of the bags. I’ll eventually add that information to all. The bags listed does not even represent 1% of the raw fiber I have. I am thrilled to say that all the animal fiber I have received came from small farms that HUMANELY shear their animals. They seem to treat them more as pets, which I think is nice.

 

The second picture shows Polypay sheep. Regarding spinning, it’s another “new to me” breed. Polyplay sheep were created by crossing Targhees to Dorsets and Rambouillets to Finnsheep. The crossbreed offspring were recrossed. Which results in the animal having 25% of each parent breed.

The last two pictures features the actual raw fleece. Their fiber is soft, durable and very fine. When spinning, it’s important to have a light hand because the fibers tend to clump and thin out easily.

It does well with dyeing. That’s good to know! This fiber is perfect for “next to skin” garments. I’m receiving a whole fleece, almost seven pounds, of this fiber. The staple length is about 3″.

A few notes I’m learning about dealing with raw wool…
Careful attention must be given to the entire process, from removing the excess vegetable matter before you even wash the fleece. If you wash the fleece incorrectly, depending on the fleece it can felt. Also when you card (think slicker brush) or comb the fleece, proper care is needed or you could damage the fiber. Cleaning fleeces is a long and tedious process, but I enjoy it immensely.

Cleaning my spinning wheel is something that I have to start doing with my beloved Ruth (Kromski Sonata). I’ve had her since February and besides the occasional wipe down with cloth, I have not applied furniture polish to her. I saved this video a few months ago, but as of yet I have not made an effort to do anything. Instead of purchasing “wood oil” for my spinning wheel. I am going to research and look for natural alternatives. Almond oil seemed to be one suggestion that I read, and I do have plenty of that at home. We use it for our skin.

In other news…

There’s so much going on in our lives and while I’ve taken plenty of crafty photos (sewing, knitting, spinning and cooking) and even uploaded them to this site… I haven’t written about them yet, but will!

Yesterday, I was knitting my test knit cowl when I realized something that my join was twisted. Ulp… In my 35+ years of knitting this has only happened a few times.

Because of that I’ve frogged my project and am starting over. I’m a process knitter, so it didn’t bother me that much. If something isn’t right, I’ll make it right. Today, after my work is finished, I’ll be knitting. This project is due next week. It’s a simple lace knit project so it should not take me too long.

Saturday, I received the above books from a Facebook friend The majority of the people that I’m friends with on Facebook are family, friends and a few former classmates, there might be five that I don’t actually know. This lady hosts a sewing forum on there which is how I “met” her. We’ve struck up a friendly conversation because of our similarities. In a few weeks, I’ll be sending her some of my handspun yarn along with a few other goodies. I cannot wait to see how she likes her gifts.

 

In other news…

Yesterday morning, this is what greeted us out in the garden. We took him back to the woods, perhaps a 1/2 acre away and set it free. I’ve always adored raccoons. I had no way of knowing what sex this one was, but I’ve named it… “Lucy.”