sock porn for knitting voyeurs.

Monday, July 06, 2009

handcombing wool two and natural dyeing 1(01)

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day 2 of tour de fleece 2009
362 grams combed total
294 grams sliver (68 grams waste not pictured)

I had to start putting the sliver in cleaner's supply bags since my foam boxes couldn't hold any more after this picture :) (meghan, these are the boxes i was telling you about from a while back!)

Not a bad showing, especially since Sunday was my last installment of the 3 week "Natural Dyeing 101" class I've been attending at Verb for Keeping Warm's Workshop in Berkeley. In the two previous weeks, Kristine had taken us thru mordanting...

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...dyeing and dyestuffs...

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...and yesterday was washing all of the beautiful BFL we had created.

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I knew how intense the setup and work involved in natural dyeing was, but didn't body-know it. It really did take us three weeks to get from white wool to color, which is just crazytalk to me when I think about dyeing with acid dyes and being said and done in a matter of days (drying time occupying most of that).

I'm glad to have taken the class-- Kristine is an excellent teacher who fielded our questions like no book ever could. I know she'll offer the class again in the fall (after the cakewalks of vending at sock summit and soar :))... and it'll be a prereq to further classes such as cochineal, natural dyegardens, and indigo (lovely indigo discussion on anne's blog here today) that I'm already looking forward to.

For me, I was mainly interested in natural dyeing as it would apply to dyeing fleece... it really has gotten out of control here again fleecewise and for some reason, dyeing fleece would make it somehow more acceptable to have a wall of fleece come avalanching down in my closet as a regular occurance. Anyhow, I was able to take away enough information about natural dyeing to actively start daydreaming about how some of these colors would look over fleeces washed in lock formation, naturally colored and no...

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Back to combing :)

5 comments:

lexa said...

Look at those gorgeous colors!!

mikomiao said...

Florence fiber is sooo gorgeous and your combing is just beautiful!

kimchi said...

ah-maaaaazing! those fluffy balls of wool look absolutely dee-vine! and the natural dyeing class looks like it was really fun! K is such a great teacher... :o)

adrienne said...

Oh, so pretty! Natural dyeing sounds fascinating, but I don't think I'd have the patience.

And - your fibre.... Looks wonderful!

madonnaearth said...

Wow; amazing colors!

I have a question about the fiber though: Do you handcard it after you've reached the state that it's in now in the box? If you do, why? Could you spin it now as it is?

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