Saturday, July 26, 2008
Summer is going too fast!!
Well I am still doing a little bit of everything, running in circles. I dyed a pot of wool fleece, it was quite dirty and matted even after I had washed it so put it in a pot on the stove and sprinkled some dye colors on it and poked it around a bit. When it was finished I rinsed it and spun the water out of it and put it to dry on my drying rack, as it dried I teased it apart and then when it was almost dry I took it out on the deck and teased it apart some more, the matts came apart and most of the debris fell out, now to decide what to do with it!! I finished knitting the feather and fan scarf out of the llama yarn, now just have to wash and block it. The llama club was gifted with some cones of llama yarn for a fund raiser, there were two cones of a light tan color so I bought them and skeined off a skein from each cone, one was a darker shade of tan and thought I would paint them and see how they came out. Well first of all.....100% llama does not grab the dye like wool does and I ended up with toooo much dye on the skein so there was a lot of blotting of extra dye and the dye ran together which concerned me a bit but in the end it turned out not too bad, the colors are dark as when I thought the yarn was not going to be dark enough to cover the natural color I added more concentrated color. I am wondered if I should have used a thickener in my dye so that it would not have ran together so much before it had a chance to absorb into the yarn??? Have never used it before so do not know....will have to investigate.. Now what to make with the yarn, I have not knit that much lace weight and this yarn is really lace weight so have been knitting a few patterns of different lace patterns. Might just do the feather and fan pattern and make a scarf to get used to knitting with it, are there lace needles?? I find I am having a hard time not splitting the stitches, knitting with the needles I have it is a slow process. That is another thing I will have to investigate. The fleece sorting is an on going thing, so far I have all the alpaca fleece sorted and am working on the llama fleeces, had stop the sorting for a bit and get my two oz of llama fibre dehaired and pick out the debris for the entry for Handspinners Choice Competition in the fibre and fleece section at the Llama Conference the end of Sept. I have to have it in by the end of July as they have a spinner spin one oz and it is displayed with the unspun oz of fibre. You do not realize how much two oz of llama fibre is until you start weighing it. But it is done and ready to go!! I could not wash it so for the competition but as soon as I got my two oz sorted I washed the rest of the fleece and it is so much easier to work with, just had to spin up a tiny skein this morning to see how it will spin and it is so nice, now to get it carded and spun. Now before the conference we have the local fair so have to decide what I am going to enter in that as the deadline for entry's is the first of Aug. might have a few things already made that I can enter, better go check. I had ordered a Pat Green supercard carder early in the spring, they were so backed up on orders and said it would probably be later in the fall before I would get it.....guess what??...Paula phoned me yesterday and they will be sending my carder out on Wed.(picture happy dance here) I have had one of their smaller carders for years and love it but this one is electric (another happy dance)the best thing is I can take my carded fleece off in rovings if I want to(another happy dance) Then of course I have been taking many pictures of my flowers, everyday someone else is popping a flower out that needs it's picture taken and I am still battling with the gophers in my vegetable garden, will not have any peas this year because of the mice and the gophers but am guarding my carrots and lettuce and beans so far o.k. Well am off to wash the lettuce I just picked from the garden and then decide whether I should sort more fleece or spin the llama fleece I just washed. Hope everyone is having a great summer!! For me it is going tooo fast!!
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3 comments:
Ok, take #2
LOVED the scarf. Maybe it'll be for sale sometime down the road. What are those pink blooms you pictured?
Nona
They are my roses Nona, the bush was broken almost to the ground with the wet snow we had during the spring so is a surprise to have such growth on it.
Love the photo of the yarn with the rolling green hills in the background. Hope you've had some time to relax this summer.
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