BFL Sock Yarn Dye

Dye Results for Blue-Faced Leicester/nylon (BFL) sock yarn purchased from The Black Lamb at the Woodstock Fleece Festival 2016. Colour of the undyed wool was off white or ivory coloured.

5 skeins of BFL sock yarn
1 skein is 115 g

Dye: Leftover acid dyes, various hues and depth of shade (DOS)
1 T citric acid in a pail of water

Method:
Tied figure eight ties to secure each skein in several places.
Placed in pail of warm water with 1 tsp TNA (like Synthrapol) for one hour.
Rinsed in warm water.
Soaked skeins in pail of water containing 1 T citric acid for 45 minutes. (Doesn't have to be this long, but I was busy. 15-20 minutes would be long enough.)
Squeezed water out of each one until I felt they were just wet enough.

Placed on a long piece of plastic wrap to be dyed so that it could be wrapped easily in plastic for setting the dyes.

I used the acid/water mix for diluting some of the dyes. Dyes were applied to skeins by either dipping parts of or whole skein or by syringe in different patterns.

I checked the underside of each skein to make sure there was dye all over the wool. When I was satisfied with the colours, I dabbed up any excess dye, then I wrapped each skein in the plastic it was laid on.

A couple of the skeins I microwaved to set the dye by microwaving for 2 minutes, with a few seconds break between, then microwaving in the same manner 2 more times. I let the skeins cool in the sink undisturbed.

The other skeins I wrapped and placed in a steamer for 45 minutes. I let the skeins cool completely before I washed them with a couple of drops of Dawn detergent. I rinsed the skeins in slightly warm water. No colour came out of any of the five skeins.

I'm pleased with the results.

Turquoise/brown

Shades and tints of turquoise and blue

Turquoise with some red

Yellow with black and a few orange spots

Lighter turquoise, blue, yellow and a little red

Spinning for Spinzilla 2016

Spinzilla 2016 was running from Oct 3-9, 2016. It is a worldwide event where teams and rogue spinners compete to see who can spin the most yarn in a week.

From the Spinzilla page: 5,507,622 yards of yarn were spun this year. More results can be found on the official results page of Spinzilla.

Woolstock 2016

This is my absolute favourite show out of the whole year.
My husband and I used to be vendors, first with a friend for a couple years, then with our own booth.

Now I like to take life a little slower, when possible.

The show was bigger than ever and T., my friend had a great time with me, even when we lined up at 8:30a.m. The wait was over very quickly and we were able to get to our favourite vendors very quickly and start checking off our lists.

I was looking for sock yarn in Blue-Faced Leicester and nylon and found them at a fair price at the Black Lamb, along with a grayish blue merino and silk.
Also found silk/merino/cashmere blend in undyed skein form.
Silk noiles, undyed at Gemini Fibres.
Beautiful mannish olive green sock yarn, mohair, wool, silk blend for my husband was found at the Wellington Fibres booth.

I went to Harrison's Alpacas and got some gorgeous caramel coloured alpaca rovings which I hope to use to blend for a contest entry early next year with the Ontario Alpaca group.

My favourite Icelandic sheep farmers had a 5 lb. dark brown ram fleece waiting for me to scoop it up and I did.

I scoured this one with Dawn in the first wash, then used Orvus Paste for two more washes. I spun out the dirty water before rinsing. I rinsed once in quite hot water, then gave it two more rinses, each a little less hot with vinegar in the third. I used my front loading washing machine to spin dry the mesh bagged fleece.

It's a very dark, grey day today with high winds. I jthought I might hang it outside on some hooks in mesh bags to see if I could get some wind going through it to dry, but I think it's about to storm, so now it's in the house. I will just have to spread it out on some screens to dry.

My friend bought absolutely gorgeous sock yarns from Red Sock, Blue Sock, I think it was called. I would have loved to have got some too. I hope they will be back next year.

I saw many fellow spinners I have come to know throughout the few years I have been spinning. It was nice to see them again.

Sadly I didn't take any pictures this year. We finished off the outing with lunch in downtown Woodstock.

Oh-I forget to say how perfect the weather was-sunny, warm and just absolutely beautiful.