Dyeing Challenge

This week I tried matching some roving that I had dyed using the rainbow technique of painting the colors on and then heat setting. The main challenge was adding enough dye to cover the white without adding so much that the colors would over-mix and become muddy, the most that I could heat-set at a time was 8oz and I needed 1 lb of the same which meant repeating myself:)

The roving with the label was my goal to match. In the top picture the one on the right was my first attempt and the one on the left was closer with just a few evenly spaced light spots. What do you think? Is the one on the left a close enough match? I did manage two batches of each colorway that match each other, so have a pound of each, (and yes it's merino wool).

Frolics in Fiber

This week I played with colors, dyed a little roving, felted some cat toy balls, dyed/painted some silk scarves. (Oh and attended a craft show, second one of the month is next Sat). Enjoy the pictures.

Fiber Friday

This is the yarn I spun during the week ending March 5th. It is hand-dyed shades of pink merino wool plied with a brown. The white and pink are spool ends.

Alpaca and Mohair

I purchased some lovely alpaca roving from a shop on Etsy, a combination of brown, black and gray stripe. I spun two spools of 2 ounces each, then plied them together into the yarn that you see on my niddy-noddy. (Almost 250yds) Now to decide on a project, it's nice and soft with a slight halo.

My next box in the mail contained an assortment of black, grey, and silver curly locks of kid mohair. After a well needed bath, this is some of it drying. I know some will be saved for needle felting, the rest to be carded and spun.

Needle Felting

Last week my son and I took a class in needle felting. This involves stabbing wool with a special barbed needle to make the fibers mat together. He is an artist and took imediately to the concepts of creating soft sculture. The pictures are the creations he has made during the past week. He will probably thread a fishline through to turn them into hanging ornaments.