And then there was a swatch...



Just a quick sample, to see what the color blend looks like when it's knit. The above photo is the most accurate rendering of the color that I've gotten so far. Sort of a greeny browny gray mossy heathered dark green, with subtle specks of the red and chartreuse. I was aiming for a complex color with lots of depth. Accomplished.

We likes it, precioussss...

I finally bit the bullet and bought a stainless steel kettle for dyeing. I've been using a blue speckleware enameled pot, a generic cheap canning kettle, but after two years of acidic dye baths, the kettle was toast.



The acid has eaten through the enamel, and the bottom is all rusty. This is very bad, not only because it's rough and the yarn catches on it, but it also changes the colors of my dyes. It visibly dulls them down, makes them grayer, and makes it hard to get a clear light color. That's all well and good if you're doing natural dyeing and want the interaction with iron to act as a mordant or "sadden" the color, but that's not what I want for the dyeing I do.

So a couple weeks ago this came to live in my house:



It makes a world of difference. Not only are the colors clearer, they are easier to reproduce and because the pot has a heavy triple layer bottom, the stove doesn't have to be set as high to hold the temperature. With the old pot, I had to set the stove dial to halfway between Medium and Medium-High to maintain 180 degrees and it was tricky to find the spot that would be hot enough but not boil. With this pot, it only has to be halfway between Medium-Low and Medium, and it heats much more evenly.

Shiny AND energy-saving. Nice!

I was finally, finally able to get back to working on my sweater wool this weekend. Has it really been a full month since I had that lovely table full of carded batts? The first thing I had to do was to divide up all the single-color batts and recombine them for the blended batts. Honestly, I think this step was the sticking point for why I haven't worked on this since I got everything carded the first time. The logistics of managing all that recombining were a bit intimidating.

On to blending! I have 1380 g (3.0 lb.) of washed, dyed, once-carded wool, in 15 colors; a total of 30 batts. Each batt worked out to about 45-55 grams, which is a workable amount for the carder, so I wanted to end up with 30 blended batts as well. I needed to split each batt into 30 pieces.

I was originally going to do this by weighing each batt, doing the division, and weighing out each piece. That quickly went out the window, for fiddliness and because my scale doesn't do tenths of a gram.

Instead, I split each batt down the middle, split each half in thirds, and pulled each sixth into five pieces.



It was easy to do, and the batts were carded well enough that doing it this way was "close enough" to even. The resulting 30 chunks of wool went into 30 separate grocery bags. (Please don't hate me for the shocking number of plastic bags I found in my cupboard. I'm horrible at remembering to bring my canvas bags to the grocery store. I promise I'll do better - I'm quite embarassed by this plethora of plastic! When I bike to the store, I bring my own bags/backpack; it's those spur of the moment grocery stops when I'm in the car that do me in. I should just leave the canvas bags in the car, and remember to put them back there after unpacking the groceries.)

Anyway - 30 separate piles of wool. This is what my living room looked like after all the batts had been divvied up.



Each bag had its handles tied and went back into the big box, so the wool chunks wouldn't fall out and get mixed up. By this point, it was about 1:30 am on Friday night/Saturday morning, and I should have gone to bed. I didn't, though. I kept one bag of wool tufts out and had to see what it looked like carded. Hee hee! I just couldn't go to bed without seeing what the blend looked like.

This jumble of tufts:



turned into this batt after one pass through the carder:



I layered the colors onto the carder in order, first all the greens, then the teals, then chartreuse, then red, then brown. It came off the carder a lovely puffy layered rainbow.



That's pretty, but I want a more homogeneous blend for this yarn. So I split the batt lengthwise into four pieces:



pulled off chunks, attenuated them a bit, and sent everything through again. After the second pass through the carder, I had this batt:



Now that's what I'm talking about! The colors aren't completely blended into mud, but overall the effect is even. Uniformly streaky, I guess. Every section of the batt has every color, at some point in its thickness.



The wool carded up beautifully, without neps (yay!) or clumps. Fluffy, puffy, softy, lofty; this is pretty wool. I'm very happy with the blending. I was going to do a third pass, but that would have blended it too much. I want to be able to see the sparks of the accent colors in the finished yarn.



By this time it was 2:00 am. Like a good little girl, I rolled the batt up, put it in the storage tub, and went to bed.

This morning, I tore off one sixth of the batt to spin a test skein.



Love love LOVE it! This is pretty much the exact yarn I was aiming for. This sample skein is chain-plied, but the final yarn will be a true 3-ply. Other than that, it's just right.



This sample is:

28 yards
8 grams (0.2 oz)
10 wpi
1587 ypp

I spun this semi-worsted, with a forward draw from the end of the strip of batt and very lightly smoothing in the twist, but also allowing the twist to enter the drafting triangle. It's very lofty and elastic.



This is so incredibly satisfying, to go from a raw fleece to that yarn.

I'm having a really hard time concentrating, in my Friday afternoon post-lunch stupor, especially since I've been at work since 6:45 this morning. I'm supposed to be reviewing a permit application so that I can write a similar one. It's for a Regional General Permit Application, which means that it will cover a lot of similar projects, and is therefore written in - you guessed it - generalities. Sweeping statements about all foreseeable impacts and effects to protected fish species and waterways, as well as specific impacts from various construction methods and project types. It is very dense, wordy, and long.

I look at the words, I read the paragraphs, but all I hear in my head is sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher.

Wha whaa wha whaaa wha wha.

I wonder if anyone would notice if I closed my office door and took a nap under my desk? TGIF.

My latest round of dyeing:


1. basil, 2. paprika, 3. celery, 4. smoke, 5. maraschino, 6. glassy, 7. fluorite, 8. cinnamon twist, 9. peach, 10. winter sea, 11. wood hyacinth, 12. cerulean, 13. stucco, 14. summer sky, 15. dreaming of spring, 16. crocus riot

(Created with fd's Flickr Toys.)

I'm trying out a new base yarn, a medium-heavy weight fingering merino/silk. The Crocus Riot, Dreaming of Spring, Summer Sky, and Stucco are this new yarn, the rest are Zephyr laceweight. The fingering is beautiful, very luxurious. It's a 4-ply, high twist yarn; 70% merino/30% silk, and has a great feel. It should wear well, and looks and feels like it has more silk than just 30%. The twist and 4 plies makes it very smooth with a great sheen.

I finally finished spinning and plying the gray-brown Friday Harbor wool that I recarded last month. Yummy, yummy 3-ply...



The finished yarn softened up beautifully, considering it's Romney/Border Leicester. It's not next-to-the-skin soft, but perfect for a sweater.



I thought I had 8 oz of this wool, but it turns out I have 12.9 oz. I'm not sure where I came up with the number 8, since the bag doesn't have any markings on it. Perhaps I was hallucinating, what with the excitement of the new carder arriving...

Anyway:

12.9 oz
675 yards
833 yards per pound
10-12 wraps per inch
3-ply

I had a semi-plan to combine this with the Tunis I spun in January 2008, and knit a yoked sweater. It wasn't a full-blown plan, because I didn't even look at the Tunis yarn or check my blog archive or anything for the grist or wpi on the Tunis. I just sat down and spun relaxing yarn, and left it to fate whether the Romney/Border Leicester yarn would be remotely the same as the Tunis. I did remember it was 3-ply, and slightly heavier than my default yarn.

Turns out I was spot on. When I went back in my archive to get the link for this post, I discovered that the Tunis is also 10-12 wpi, and 833 ypp.

How the heck did that happen?

A week or so ago, Liz sent me a bundle of wool to take a look at. This was a raw fleece that she bought locally and had processed at a mill, and while the wool was lovely, the preparation was not. It came back to her full of neps. Obviously this was extremely disappointing for Liz, and she emailed me to ask if I had any thoughts about what could be done.

I offered to do a test run through my combs, so she sent me a chunk of the roving. This is a Romney/Merino cross, and is very crimpy and fine. Liz told me the tag from the shepherd says "S/L 4"+/- Virtually NO vegetation in wool. Strong healthy fiber. Soft nice handle. Great color. Consistent in color & crimp. EASY TO SPIN." I would agree with that. The staple length was about 4", it's very soft, and a very interesting color. Sort of a cinnamony apricot gray. Did I mention crimpy? And soft? Definitely more toward the Merino end of the spectrum than the Romney.

And, unfortunately, chock full of neps. I pulled out lots of individual fibers, and they all seemed to be about 4" when held under slight tension, so I don't think the neps were due to a weak spot in the staple. The neps, when teased apart, were mostly long intact fibers. Some had a core of dirt or VM.

I spent a couple evenings this week doing experiments. There are a lot of pictures in this post, but bear with me, they're important for illustrating this experiment.



I'll start from the top left corner. The first piece is the roving in it's unaltered state.



You can see how neppy it is:



This is a terrible thing to happen to a beautiful fleece.

So my first instinct, and the first thing I tried, was combing. I figured that if anything was going to get the neps out, it would be the combs.



It worked moderately well. Unfortunately, there was a lot of waste. It took 5 passes through the combs (Indigo Hound double-row Viking combs) to get most of the neps out, and out of 5 grams of wool, I got 2 grams of top. (Note: my scale doesn't register amounts this small very well, so these weights likely aren't terribly accurate. Let's just say that I lost about half the fiber and call it close.)



It's definitely an improvement. The top is mostly nep-free and will make a better yarn.

I wanted to fully explore the possibilities with salvaging this roving, though, so I also tried using the hand cards (Schacht 208-point cotton cards). I knew that the cards wouldn't remove the neps, but I wanted to see what would happen. I did 6 passes through the cards, and rolled it lengthwise into a cigar, then attenuated it into "top".



Surprisingly, it was also moderately successful. I was really not expecting much from the cards, and was pleasantly surprised to see that some of the neps were "un-nepped." The very fine carding cloth and very gentle brushing seemed to untangle some of the spots and give a slightly smoother product.



There are still neps, but it's an improvement over the original roving.

The last thing I tried that evening was the drum carder. I knew it probably wouldn't be at all successful, but this is for Science, and is an Experiment, and I wanted to know what would happen. So I carded a little batt.



I sent the fiber three times through the carder (Strauch Finest), turning the drum very slowly and steadily so as to avoid having the fibers snap back on themselves as they transferred from the lickerin to the main drum.

This part of the experiment did not pleasantly surprise me at all. It was a completely expected Fail.



The batt is fluffier than the original roving, but that's the only good thing. The neps are still all there, and some were added. NO improvement.

So that was Day 1 of the experiment. My conclusions were that, as expected, combing was the best way to salvage the wool. However, I had a thought as I was working with this roving.

It seemed to me that the wool was not completely clean. It seemed slightly sticky and tacky, and the fibers liked to hold onto their neighbors, then let go with a boing as the crimp overcame the gluey stickiness. Fine wools are prone to this spring-back; that's generally what makes neps. This, however, seemed excessive and the stickiness wasn't helping.

I still had about half the roving left, so I decided to wash it and start over. I used hot tap water and a good squirt of Dawn dish soap, with two hot rinses.



As you can see, the water was very cloudy. You can hardly see the mesh bag through the water. Quite a bit of lanolin came out of this roving. After it was dry, I could feel the difference immediately. The fibers were more amenable to sliding past each other, now.



No real difference in the look of the roving, but a very different feel.



Still neppy. I started at the beginning, with combing.



Same as last time, I did five passes through the combs. I was hoping that the washed roving would give less waste than the unwashed, but it ended up being about the same, about a 50% loss. It was much easier to comb and diz, though.



Then, because I'm thrifty, I decided to see what I could do with the combing waste. There was just so much of it, you see. So I carded it on the hand cards, I think 5 or so passes, and it wasn't horrible. Neppy, yes, but spinnable.

I spun up quick and dirty samples on my little Cascade spindle, just to see what the yarns would look like.



The top one is from the combed top, the bottom is from the carded combing waste. Both were spun laceweight, as that's what I like to spin. The combed top was lovely to spin, and the neps were pretty easy to pick out as I went. It gave a somewhat textured yarn, though probably if I had spun this on my wheel instead of the spindle, it would have been more even. It's pretty, though.

The carded combing waste gave a very textured yarn, as expected. I had to restrain myself from picking out the neps as they passed, which was hard! I don' t think this yarn would wear very well, though maybe if it was spun thicker and had more plies it would be all right. Actually, now that I think about it, these neps would make an interesting textured tweedy yarn if blended with a contrasting colored fiber.

Next, I tried carding the washed fiber on the hand cards.



On the left is a rolag, and the coiled bit is a carderful that was rolled cigar-fashion and attenuated into "top." Both had six passes through the cards. As with the unwashed carding trial, there's definite improvement over the uncarded roving, and I think the washed is better than the unwashed.



I must say, I was really surprised that the hand cards got out some of the neps. I was not expecting that at all.

I also spun one of the rolags on the spindle, as a comparison with the other preparations:



It was an interesting, logical progression. The combed top is the most consistent yarn, followed by the carded rolag, followed by the carded combing waste. It makes sense, as the top has the fewest neps and the carded waste has the most. Spiffy.

The last thing I did was to drumcard the washed roving.



As before, not a good idea. Totally neppified.



I do think it's not quite as bad as the drumcarded unwashed fiber, though. It's a bit hard to compare the two, since the washed batt is thicker than the unwashed batt. I think perhaps it just maintained the same number of neps that were in the original roving, without adding more. Nice and fluffy, though.

My Conclusions:

1) I think this roving was inadequately washed and/or rinsed at the mill, which led to residual stickiness and the creation of many more neps than should have been formed during carding. The carding machine could also have been set to run too fast for this fine and crimpy wool.

2) Combing is the best solution to get out the neps and produce a smoother yarn.

3) Combing will result in a LOT of waste fiber.

4) It is possible to re-card the combing waste, for a textured yarn, preferably part of a blend for added stability.

5) Hand cards will smooth out the neps a bit, but you have to be very gentle. Very fine cards are probably best, and it takes quite a few passes for each little batch.

6) Drum carding the roving is not helpful, except to fluff it up.

What would I do with it? Two options:

1) Spin it as-is, neps and all, into fine singles, as even as possible but not obsessing about it, and make a 3-ply (or more) yarn. When plied, the bumpiness would tend to even out, as seen in this quick 3-ply spindled sample, a heavy laceweight:



It's textured, but not excessively, and I didn't even pick out any neps as I was spinning. Really not too bad as long as you don't expect a perfectly even yarn. The neps will tend to work their way out, though, and this yarn may be prone to pilling.

2) For a more hard-wearing yarn I would comb it to get as much good fiber out as possible, and spin a fairly thin worsted-technique singles, given the fineness of the fiber. I would definitely make a multi-ply yarn, to help prevent future pilling. I would then take the combing waste, dye it lots of bright colors and card it into a medium-dark wool for a fun tweedy blend.

This was a really interesting puzzle to work through. I enjoyed it!

As seen at One Crazy Fiber Lady:

Supposedly if you’ve seen over 85 of these films, you have no life. There are 239 films on this list. Put x’s next to the films you’ve seen, add them up, change the header adding your number.

( ) Rocky Horror Picture Show

(x) Grease

( ) Pirates of the Caribbean

( ) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest

( ) Boondock Saints

( ) Fight Club

(x) Starsky and Hutch

(x) Neverending Story

(x) Blazing Saddles

(x) Airplane

Total:5

(x) The Princess Bride

( ) Anchorman

( ) Napoleon Dynamite

( x) Labyrinth

( ) Saw

( ) Saw II

( ) White Noise

( ) White Oleander

( ) Anger Management

(x) 50 First Dates

(x) The Princess Diaries

(x) The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

Total so far: 10

( ) Scream

( ) Scream 2

( ) Scream 3

( ) Scary Movie

( ) Scary Movie 2

( ) Scary Movie 3

( ) Scary Movie 4

( ) American Pie

( ) American Pie 2

( ) American Wedding

( ) American Pie Band Camp

Total so far: 6

(x) Harry Potter 1

(x) Harry Potter 2

(x) Harry Potter 3

(x) Harry Potter 4

( ) Resident Evil 1

( ) Resident Evil 2

(x) The Wedding Singer

( ) Little Black Book

( ) The Village

(x) Lilo & Stitch

Total so far: 16

(x) Finding Nemo

( ) Finding Neverland

( ) Signs

( ) The Grinch

( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre

( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

( ) White Chicks

( ) Butterfly Effect

(x) 13 Going on 30

( ) I, Robot

( ) Robots

Total so far: 18

( ) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

( ) Universal Soldier

(x) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events

( ) Along Came Polly

( ) Deep Impact

(x) KingPin

(x) Never Been Kissed

(x) Meet The Parents

( ) Meet the Fockers

( )Eight Crazy Nights

( ) Joe Dirt

(x) KING KONG (The Original)

Total so far: 23

( ) A Cinderella Story

( ) The Terminal

( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie

( ) Passport to Paris

( ) Dumb & Dumber

( ) Dumber & Dumberer

( ) Final Destination

( ) Final Destination 2

( ) Final Destination 3

( ) Halloween

( ) The Ring

( ) The Ring 2

( ) Surviving X-MAS

( ) Flubber [the original]

Total so far: 23

( ) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle

( ) Practical Magic

( ) Chicago

( ) Ghost Ship

( ) From Hell

( ) Hellboy

( ) Secret Window

( ) I Am Sam

( ) The Whole Nine Yards

( ) The Whole Ten Yards

Total so far: 23

( ) The Day After Tomorrow

( ) Child’s Play

( ) Seed of Chucky

( ) Bride of Chucky

(x) Ten Things I Hate About You

( ) Just Married

( ) Gothika

( ) Nightmare on Elm Street

(x) Sixteen Candles

( ) Remember the Titans

( ) Coach Carter

( ) The Grudge

( ) The Grudge 2

( ) The Mask

( ) Son Of The Mask

total so far: 25

( ) Bad Boys

( ) Bad Boys 2

( ) Joy Ride

( ) Lucky Number Slevin

( ) Ocean’s Eleven

( ) Ocean’s Twelve

( ) Bourne Identity

(x) Bourne Supremecy

( ) Lone Star

( ) Bedazzled

( ) Predator

( ) Predator II

( ) The Fog

(x) Ice Age

( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown

( ) Curious George

Total so far: 27

(x) Independence Day

( ) Cujo

( ) A Bronx Tale

( ) Darkness Falls

( ) Christine

(x) ET

( ) Children of the Corn

( ) My Bosses Daughter

(x) Maid in Manhattan

( ) War of the Worlds

( ) Rush Hour

( ) Rush Hour 2

Total so far: 30

( ) Best Bet

(x) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

( ) She’s All That

( ) Calendar Girls

( ) Sideways

( ) Mars Attacks

( ) Event Horizon

( x) Ever After

(x) Wizard of Oz

(x) Forrest Gump

( ) Big Trouble in Little China

(x) The Terminator

(x) The Terminator 2

( ) The Terminator 3

Total so far: 36

( ) X-Men

( ) X-2

( ) X-3

(x) Spider-Man

(x) Spider-Man 2

( ) Sky High

( ) Jeepers Creepers

( ) Jeepers Creepers 2

( ) Catch Me If You Can

(x) The Little Mermaid

( ) Freaky Friday (the original)

( ) Reign of Fire

( ) The Skulls

( ) Cruel Intentions

( ) Cruel Intentions 2

( ) The Hot Chick

( ) Shrek

( ) Shrek 2

Total so far: 39

( ) Swimfan

( ) Miracle on 34th street

( ) Old School

(x) The Notebook

( ) K-Pax

( ) Krippendorf’s Tribe

( ) A Walk to Remember

( ) Ice Castles

( ) Boogeyman

( ) The 40-year-old Virgin

Total so far: 40

(x) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring

(x) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers

(x) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King

(x) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

(x) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

(x) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Total so far: 46

( ) Baseketball

( ) Hostel

( ) Waiting for Guffman

( ) House of 1000 Corpses

( ) Devils Rejects

(x) Elf

(x) Highlander

( ) Mothman Prophecies

( ) American History X

( ) Three

Total so Far: 48

( ) The Jacket

( ) Kung *** Hustle

( ) Shaolin Soccer

( ) Night Watch

(x) Monsters Inc.

(x) Titanic

(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail

( ) Shaun Of the Dead

( ) Willa74

Total so far: 51

( ) High Tension (Haute Tension)

( ) Club Dread

( ) Hulk

( ) Dawn Of the Dead

(x) Hook

(x) Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

( ) 28 days later

( ) Orgazmo

( ) Phantasm

( x ) Waterworld

Total so far: 54

( ) Kill Bill vol 1

( ) Kill Bill vol 2

( ) Mortal Kombat

( ) Wolf Creek

( ) Kingdom of Heaven

( ) the Hills Have Eyes

( ) I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman

( ) The Last House on the Left

( ) Re-Animator

( ) Army of Darkness

Total so far: 54

(x) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace

(x) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones

(x) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith

(x) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope

(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back

(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi

( ) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage

(x) Ewoks The Battle For Endor

Total so far: 61

(x ) The Matrix

(x) The Matrix Reloaded

(x) The Matrix Revolutions

( ) Animatrix

(x) Evil Dead

(x) Evil Dead 2

( ) Team America: World Police

( ) Red Dragon

(x ) Silence of the Lambs

( ) Hannibal

Total: 67

Apparently I do still have a life, though I would argue that these movies are not all created equal and this is not a valid sampling. For example, the Lord of the Rings trilogy does not in any way contribute to "not having a life, " and should in fact be required viewing for everyone. :-)

Others, I totally agree, are validly placed on the list. "Kingpin" made want to gouge my eyes out. It represents 113 minutes of my life that I will never get back. As for "Evil Dead" and Evil Dead 2," I can only plead "high school slumber party" and try to forget.....

My contribution to the Fourth Annual Blogger's (Silent) Poetry Reading:



Ocean Eyes
by Sue Brady

Images collected,
Deep in my unconscious mind:

Jasper Beach spangled in September sun,
Frozen in winter snow,
Pebbles awash and singing,
Little Moose Island, rare and quiet,
Bayberry, rose hips and urchin shells,
Make sure you check the tides.
Quoddy Head draped and wreathed in fog,
Cliffs of impossible beauty.
Herds of periwinkles
And scurrying crabs,
Everywhere cushioned with seaweed.
Chilly northern July mornings
When to breathe the salt tang
Is to know heaven.

Carolina Beach, Fort Fisher,
Sandflats alive with birds,
Rodanthe, where the ghost crabs burrow
Hatteras, Frisco, Buxton, summerheat pressing my skin.
Figure Eight Island drifted with shells
After the hurricane.
Not empty,
Not plain,
These plains of sand.

Jakle’s Lagoon in spring’s chill
Eagle nest, rafts of scoters,
Orchids hiding in the moss.
Ripples lapping at Eagle Cove,
Rueben Tarte, South Beach, Lime Kiln,
Misty winter and brilliant summer,
Where orcas hunt and play.
Gooseneck barnacles and sea stars cling
Above the anemone pool.
Waves and foghorn mourn in counterpoint,
And every day is Friday.

Now an inland shore
Of cattails and rushes and tule,
Shallow water.
Ladd Marsh, resplendent in June
Gathering, chattering, flocks on the move,
Mountains all around this shore.
Fly away, flyway.
Hot dry wind-waves
Blow across the prairie,
The tide echoes in the streams,
Rising and falling on a seasonal scale.
No waves, no tide
But it seems a shore to me.

Sea views and sea sounds
Catch the heart of a child,
Forever in their grasp,
Imprinted on my soul.
Nothing looks the same
When seen with ocean eyes.

-----------

Trying something else new here: I started an Art Fire shop.



We'll see how it goes. It has a flat monthly fee, rather than an item-by-item setup like Etsy. Depending on how well things sell, that may be good or bad. Go on over and have a look around!

I only have one skein listed there right now, but I did some dyeing today, and I'll be listing a couple skeins of yarn there and on Etsy, tomorrow.