Fyberspates

Ally Pally, Updating shop and life ramblings

Firstly, if you are visiting Allypally, you can buy my yarns from 3 stands: RKM wools (they have all the scrumptious) Tall yarns & Tales have lace lace lace and sock and I think also Woolfish have some too.

Hey!!! What an absolutely stunning morning, I LOVE my drive to work at the moment, I have never really had to drive work before seeing as I always lived in a city, but I am right on the edge of the cotswolds and the scenery is Stunning at the moment, the trees are beautiful, and I am getting in the mood for dyeing some gorgeous autumn colours. Its making me think too about where to live and stuff, I have always dreamt about building my own house, and being kind of self sufficient, I am not nieve enough to think I could do it completely, but I would love to have a go, and I would like my own peice of land etc, and I think for the first time in years I am thinking I need to slowly work towards that goal, I am kind of past my whole life revolving around work, and I am feeling the need for balance in my life. So I am starting to think about a plan, and you know me, I never do anything by halves, but for now its all about research research research, I accept its a long term goal, but its never to early to start!!!! It also gives me inspiration to keep working hard to pay of debts and get myself into a more flexible position.

So in that vein hahaha, I have started updating the shop, and I have a long way to go, as I have boxes of blimin yarn to go on.

Also I am thinking about new yarns and things for the winter, and I was wondering, what kinds of yarns do you guys want?? Lace is still selling well, but I wonder if you guys like arans and wools, what thicknesses and fibres are you looking for, are you looking for multicoloured yarns, or semisolids all the time, I confess semi solids are easy for me at the moment while its busy, but I just want your thoughts really if you leave a comment I will reply with a 10% discount code for the shop for you to encourage you to leave a comment, it will last until Monday. hehe....

oh and keep an eye on the sale page, there are things still going on there to clear the shelves

xxxxx

I love my new camera.

At last, I can take decent photo', I snapped a couple really quickly this morning just before leaving for work, of the dyeing I did at the weekend, they are not very artistic, but they give you an idea. Most of the yarn is going on ebay.

This is yarn and fibres drying out and needing to be blended, close ups are next.

So here is some yummy sock yarn I dyed:

And here is some lovely soft aran weight yarn in the same colourway:

here is some silk boucle in the same colourway  I really love this stuff, is so shiny.

Can you see a theme occuring?? When i get a colouray I like I try it on all sorts of fibres to see what they look like!!

Up next is some Kid mohair in the same colourway:

Finally are a couple of pictures of other bits and bobs I have been dying:

My yellow and pink sock yarn:

And some pink kid mohair:

Crockpot fibre

So the fibre from the crockpot was dry enough for me to photograph it and card it up.

Here is some of the darker wool and to the left is silk in the same dylot.

The colours in this picture are quite true to the real thing. I have carded together some silk and wool from this dyelot, but which is lighter. I am spinning it very very fine and will the ply it together. I think this is the best stuff I have dyed so far. For some reason the crockpot seems to intensify the colours.

Sanity rules again.

Ahem! Had a lovely weekend, just walking through the most beautiful welsh country side and walking on the beach. Actually on sat we went for a 5 hour walk! It made up for not going running this weekend. We stayed in a beautiful B&B called the Tallismand, very close to the beach, they also have a pottery business there, and all the crockery is hand made, needless to say we came home with a teapot, some mugs, a milk jug, and something else which I can't disclose because it is a Christmas present.

We got home about 2.30, and I was in the mood for some dyeing. So I got out my pot's and pans and spread news paper every where here is some of the results so far:

This is some of the raw wendsleydale fleece dyed, I did scour it a little first. I have no idea what to do with this.

Secondly this is about 75 grams of silk. I am dying to card this.

This about 400grams of wendsleydale (red pink and green) and some super wash merino (orange) I intend to make a self striping yarn from these.

And finally: Dyed and carded soya silk; again I have no idea what to do with this yet.

A success!

I decided to go to Sainsbury's to get some yummy food for the weekend, and whilst I was there I discovered food bags which you can put in the oven!! I was so excited I came home and started to dye straight away! So here is a little journey with pictures of dyeing in the oven!
OK, so I soaked some wool, silk and some soya silk.
Then I layed out the soaked fibres (excess water was squeezed out) on some cling film ready to paint.
Then mixed up some dyes, (I use Gaywool Dyes because you don't have to do any messing about with using acids etc.
Then I painted them on in stripes and brushed the colours so they mixed quite a lot; I mainly used orange and pinks. Here is a picture of the silk painted rovings:

Then I popped them into the oven bags, sealed them with a tie, and put them in at 190 degree's C.
I left them in for about 30 minutes and then took them out let them cool, swilled them out and here is a pictures of the soya silk:

And finally here is a picture of the finished rovings hanging drying in my garden, The left is the soya silk, the middle is the wool (wendsleydale) and the right is the silk.
I am going to spin these up tomorrow!!! Yeah!!

Finally A dyeing Success!

Well, I still have a headache, however, I disovered Spinning it actually quite soothing. On friday I was reading Knitting notes and she posted about dyeing some rovings, and linked to The Dye pot which has some great instructions for Crockpot dyeing. Creating my own yarn has to be nearly the most exciting thing on the planet, so I read the instructions, and because it is dyeing, I remebered them to the last 't', (I wish this would happen when I read psychology literature, but it's not exciting enough!!)
So I found a crappy old stew pot and soaked my rovings and poured my dyes on and popped them on the cooker, and left them to it. I cleaned the house, and when I had finished and the rovings had cooled, I got them out and they are absolutely beautiful. However the problem I normally have is the fact that although the colours are great, the rovings have felted so much you can't even tease them apart to spin them.
So all night I was tossing and turning whilst the rovings were drying just incase they might be ruined. Thankfully they were fine!
Sunday morning I started spinning them. The colours at the bottom of the pot are really really dark, and get lighter towards the top, and apart from the very bottom one the Rainbow dyeing has worked a treat.
I will post a picture of the rovings and the yarn I have spun when I get home this evening, because I was late for work so I couldn't take any pictures.
Its definately not the colours I would normally use, they are interestingly dramaticaly better than anything I have ever done before.
Only 6 hours before I can go home and spin some more!! Pic's soon!!