Trial

My Guild had their twice annual Fleece Fair this past Saturday.  I bought 4 ounces of a Polwarth/alpaca/silk blend, spun it up and I'll ply it three ways to see how I like the resulting fabric.  I've plied it on itself and with white so far.  A dark brown Polwarth has been carded but still needs to be spun.  Once all three are plied, they'll get a bath so the yarn can bloom and I'll knit the three into separate swatches.  This stuff wasn't cheap so if I can ply it with something else and get something I love, I may be inclined to buy enough for a sweater.  (Probably not but it's still a good excercise nonetheless.)

Friday I ordered black bean seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange for the summer planting and Weld seeds.  Weld is one of the big three dyeing plants:  Weld, Woad and Madder.  Weld will give me a beautiful, clear yellow.  It should give a brighter yellow than the onion skins I dyed with last month.  I decided against planting Madder because it takes 3 years before the roots are mature enough/big enough to harvest.  As for Woad, extracting the dye is a long, drawn out process that I'm not quite ready to deal with on my own.  I'm hoping to take a class this summer at the Michigan Fiber Festival in dyeing with indigo.  The dye is the same in both Indigo and Woad so the process of extraction is the same (I think).  I'd feel more comfortable tackling the extraction from Woad myself if I've seen it done somewhere else first.

I spent a couple hours today at the bottom of a cat pile, Galen curled up on my side and Tyr wrapped up in my arms.  It was pretty wonderful.

Comments

[gayle]

I've got a big ball of Polwarth roving that I want to dye before I spin. Which is why I've still got a big ball of Polwarth that isn't spun... (Never can get the time and the energy to sych so I can drag out all the dyeing stuff. I've got a vacation coming up - maybe I'll be able to manage it then.)
Looking forward to watching your weld adventure!