Project 15: BFL Swamp Thing Handspun

Here comes more handspun!



This is BFL from the big fluffy ball that came free with purchase of my wheel from The Spinning Room.  Spike and I dyed it back in November while stalking the windows for the UPS man we knew would be bringing the wheel.  Today's spinning is from the braid on the left.



I worked on spinning it as thinly as I could, which when plied turned out to be a light fingering weight yarn.  In 57 grams, I got 272 yards of 2-ply after it was washed and gently thwacked and laid flat to dry.



I'm ridiculously proud of this skein.

The Newest Member of the Family

My spinning wheel is here!

It's a Kromski Minstrel with a clear finish.

It arrived on Friday afternoon and Paul and I put it together. Friday and Saturday I spun some of the Bluefaced Leicester (BFL) fiber that was free with purchase of the wheel from The Spinning Room.

It's 29g spun 2 ply (last part is chain plied), and about 55 yards, 19 wpi (wraps per inch) (that must be wrong ... it's anywhere from fingering to aran weight).

Last Friday while we waited for the UPS man, Spike and I dyed some of the BFL to keep things interesting.

The braid on the right is what I'm spinning up now. It's hard to stay focused on finishing my House Cup knitting and crochet projects by the end of the month with my new awesome fun toy!! Must focus!!

Up to dyeing!

It's been almost two weeks now since my surprise appendicitis (is any appendicitis not a surprise?) and although everything is healing, I feel good, and everybody is getting back into our normal routines, I still have to take it easy. Even minimally invasive surgery is still surgery and it takes time to recover. I'm saying this not to be Captain Obvious or obtuse but to remind and convince myself just as much as to remind everybody reading along!

The day of my follow-up with the surgeon I decided to dye some wool and celebrate my permission to lift ten pounds again. In my dyeing experiments thus far, I've only used food coloring and other edible dyes and mordants. I'm certainly no expert and sort of get what I get! So I was playing with black food coloring and trying to "break" the dye on purpose using a lot of vinegar in the pot. Colors like black are achieved in food coloring by mixing other colors together, so in breaking it I wanted to separate those colors back out. Sometimes dyes break on their own, too - I've had blue and violet break on me before.

This time I used a lot of food coloring (dissolved into hot water) and put all of the wool in the pot at once, after soaking for a few hours in water and vinegar. I usually dye on the stove top, heating the water and vinegar in the pot with the yarn and food coloring but not all the way to boiling. The color goes into the fibers and eventually the water is clear. This is called exhausting the dye. The heat sets the color in the yarn. Well, this time the wool and water was hot for a while and the water was still nowhere near clear, so I wound off some more wool, tied it into a skein, and added it to the pot dry to exhaust the dye.

As it turns out, the dye did break but the original yarn had already absorbed all the dye it could. So the second skein absorbed what was left, which was.... well, see for yourself.

This was the original skein. It's a deep purpley red, maybe reddish purple, and black.

Godric's Hollow Worsted weight 100% wool, 100g/200yards

This was the second skein. It started much brighter and greyed as it stayed in the pot. The purple splotches were an unexpected, but interesting and welcome, surprise.

Luna Lovegood Worsted weight 100% wool 63g/125yards

Yes, these two skeins came out of the same pot. Amazing, isn't it?

The dyepot of mystery and enchantment.

The names come from this month's prompts in the Inspired Dyeing group on Ravelry. The yarn actually came before the prompts in this case, but they were just right.

I haven't decided what to do with these skeins just yet. Any thoughts?

What next??

I took the opportunity during the Ravelympics to wrap up a few things that had been rattling around in my brain or WIP basket for far too long. I ripped out six partial projects that I just didn't love anymore or would have a better future as something else.





I crocheted an adult-sized pair of socks for the first time.



I finished the knitting on a WIP that I started last October, the marathon Saoirse Shawl. I still need to sew the pieces together, weave in the ends, and send it for a dip in some warm water, but for Ravelympics purposes the project is done, done, done, finally at last it is done! Finished photos to come, of course.

I overdyed two types of Brown Sheep yarn, a skein of Lamb's Pride Bulky and a skein of Nature Spun. Unfortunately, in photographs it's practically impossible to tell that the yarns are now both deeper blue all over and have new purple splotches. It isn't what I was going for, but I like it. I might dye it again though and go for more purple so it doesn't look quite as much like an accident.

Bulky Before and After



Nature Spun Before and After


I also dyed a 50g skein of sock yarn that I just love. I used yellow and orange food coloring. Spike has stolen this skein to put on my sweater drying rack twice - I guess he likes it too. This skein's fate is with a skein of black in colorwork, but I'm not sure what just yet - maybe Endpaper Mitts.



And for one of the designer events, I wrote down the pattern for some crochet mitts I made in January. I want to have it tested before releasing it into the wild, but the part where I get the initial thoughts onto a page is done. Pictures and making sure other people understand it, well, I have no idea how much of a challenge that will be...

So what's next? I'll be making a child-sized Saoirse Shawl, a pair of lime green mittens, a beaded necklace or two, finishing my Laminaria, and some sewing! Yes, sewing! March is going to be great!