Daisy...and Suffolk

I just have to make it known that Daisy came home today. She is the new addition to our family here.
At just 7 weeks old she has a lot of growing to do, but since we saw her at 3 weeks, she seems to have at least tripled in size. She is a blue merle Australian Shepherd.

The personalities of the Aussies have suited our lifestyle very well.

Welcome Daisy!!

Daisy @ 7 weeks. June 22/12.

To keep this fibre related I will mention that I scoured a Suffolk fleece this week & this morning before we got Daisy.
The fleece was very muddy, so I split the fleece into several groups to fit in all of the large pails I have, filled them with water, added the fleece and soaked outside for 3 days.
I changed the water once.
On the third day, I drained the buckets and scoured in hot tap water using Power Scour only. I did two washes and several rinses. I did not use the Fibre Rinse by Unicorn yet. I figure I will spin it up first and then wash the skeins. The rinse will be used after any dyeing I might do. The final use of this wool is as yet undecided.
The only thing certain is that I will card & make rolags for woollen spinning.

I must get back to Daisy.

Walnut Dye

And today, the last of my three days off I boiled up some walnuts a friend had given me last fall. They had been sitting in plastic bags on my deck all winter and just the other day, a critter of some sort had nibbled into a bag. So without looking at them more than I had to, I loaded them into my dye pots & boiled for 1 and a half hours. It did look inky. The smell sort of reminded me of the smell of chocolate baking. Just 'sorta'. Otherwise it was bearable; not too bad.  

The fibre selected was 104 g BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) which I soaked in soapy water then did an iron mordant for 45 minutes at a simmer. Afterwards I washed & rinsed the fibre. The dyebath was prepared by now & I strained one pot for this to be a strong dyebath. I added the fibre & simmered for 1 hour. 

After removing the fibre from the dyebath, I placed the fibre into a container of very hot tap water to which I added 4 T. vinegar. I let it soak for 10 minutes. 

Fibre was then washed, rinsed, washed and rinsed several times until the water was fairly clear. After wuzzing, I spread it out to dry in a sunny & breezy spot.
Here's what it looks like drying.

BFL walnut dyed. Iron mordant. Vinegar rinse.

 Not quite as dark as I had hoped.

More Dyes of June 2112. Woad. Indigo.

 

And then the next day I used the plants from which I did an extraction the day before.

From extracted woad leaves. BFL top.