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.
