Sunday, January 31, 2016

Ile de France

I recently bought some Ile de France fleece through a Ravelry group - Canadian fibre/yarn market - that promotes Canadian grown and processed fibre.

It's a huge bag of 2 fleeces and I thought I should do up a sample and see what it is like to spin and dye.
I removed 444 grams from the top of the bag as right now I don't have a place to spread it out to skirt until the weather warms up in spring so I wasn't too picky about what I chose.

Staple length of my sample was just under 3". Some veg matter.

After scouring I was left with 200 gr.

I divided it into 5 groups of 40 grams and teased it apart, then drum carded into batts.

Using fibre reactive dyes, Procion MX from G & S Dyes in Toronto, I used the following percentages.

Total dye stock for each batt was 42 ml of 2% fibre reactive dye stock solution.

Batt 1 Yellow85%. Cyan 5%. Fuchsia5%. Black5%.
Batt 2            76%            14%            5%           5%
Batt 3            67%            23%            5%           5%
Batt 4            57%            33%            5%           5%
Batt 5            47%            43%            5%           5%

The sample spun and knitted was a total of only 7 grams spun semi woollen (carded, short forward draw). Yarn was not wet finished until after knitting.
After spinning I chain plyed, something I must practice and get better at doing.
The resulting yarn is springy and my guess would be around 30-33 microns for softness. Would be good for a cardigan or mitts, but not next to skin.

Friday, January 1, 2016

New Years Day

I'm continuing to use my time to spin flax on the first day of the new year. It seems I'm somewhat out of practice spinning from flax sliver. 
The hemp I've been spinning lately has such a short staple length, 1", that I card rolags where as the flax is 3" at the longest and I'm spinning from the sliver.
I spun some practice skeins of only a few grams last night and today just for the fun of it I dyed them. One a darkened fuchsia, another an orangey colour and one a mixed green. 

The dye is finished and will just sit in the dye bath for a couple of days before I rinse them.

I think I better get the little roast chicken in the oven or we won't have a dinner today.