photos of latest rovings for spinning

[Mullers Lane Farm]

I'm getting ready to vend at a fiber festival and thought I would share some of the roving I've dyed.  At the festival, I teach folks how the hand paint roving for spinning, how to spin on a wheel and on a drop spindle.  I also sell handspun yarns, handpainted rovings, spindles & milk soaps.


Dyed with yellow onions:



"Cabin Fever"


"Flower Power"


"SummerFire"

[Sister Wolf]

omg.

I love the yellow onions one, and I love the summerfire one.  Those two are going to be amazing when spun.

I've GOT to get up to you guys.  I need to learn this stuff.  All of it. Spinning, hand dying, making soap... <sigh>

Has anybody thanked you yet for joining TSP?  Yeah.  Thank you.

[swoods]

+1.............that is beautiful stuff. I keep saying I want to learn how to do spinning, dying, weaving, etc., but I never go any further than just saying it.

I have so much on my learn to do list............guess I should make some arrangements to do something about it. Thanks for the pics.

[Mullers Lane Farm]

my reply post got sent into oblivian in cyberspace.

check out Abby Franquemont's youtube video on the baiscs of drop spindling.  A drop spindle is easy to make at home.

Just ask & i'll help you out any way I can.

[LJH]

Cyndi, those rovings are beautiful! Is it sheeps wool?

I have a friend who spins her alpaca's wool, knits and felts the most wonderful hats & scarves. She only does a few each year, her 'pacas are more pets than livestock. She's offered to teach me, but I simply don't have the time for another addiction hobby. Maybe if I quit sleeping altogether?

[Mullers Lane Farm]

Yes, those are wool. Merino to be exact.  I have bags full of alpaca and llama in my fiber studio.  It's nice to blend with wool, but I'm not all that impressed with it for a lot of items.  There is no elasticity by itself.  It's great for items that like to drape, but anything that needs structure, you have to combine wool with it.  Of course, labeling in the US requires only 30% alpaca in a yarn to declare it 'alpaca'

I've been doing some natural dyeing.

This first is using yellow  onion skins.  I love the color so much I started spinning it right away:



This next is using the rest of the onion skins but I added goldrod flowers and alum as a mordant:



 And the resulting roving:



Then I punched up the color on a couple of skeins of roving by adding red & orange acid dyes:

[Sister Wolf]

I'd love to see these when spun.  You planning on selling, or using them?

[Mullers Lane Farm]

I'm vending at a fiber festival 09/18.  What I don't sell there, I'll be spinning over the winter.  I've already started spinning the first one that was dyed with onion skins.

[Mullers Lane Farm]

Here is the yarn I have on my wheel right now.  It's using the yellow onion skin dyed roving.



 I will be spinning a 2nd bobbin of this and plying them together for a 2-ply yarn.



You can see the subtle varigations of yellow to peach.  When it is plyed together, the varigations will be less noticible, but when knitted or crocheted, they will come out again.

I'm real excited about this yarn!  I probably have about 6- 8 oz of this dyed up so I'll have a few hanks of finished yarn.

[Sister Wolf]

I really, really want to learn to do this.  I'm dying over here.  I have the unnerving desire to spend a bazillion dollars on skeins of handpainted or kettle dyed yarns, and they never have exactly the colors I want for a specific project.  Nor do they ever have enough.  Nor do they ever have the KIND of wool I want.  It's always mixed with something stupid, like silk, or bamboo, or other annoying things.  I want WOOL in the RIGHT color in ENOUGH skeins, dang it!  And I should be able to provide this for myself, rather than waiting for somebody to magically come up with colors I love.

[Mullers Lane Farm]

So, SW, what exactly is stopping you?  inexpensive roving in the wool you want? Do you know about the characteristics of various wools and how they wear? If not, pick up the Fournier mother/daughter book called "In Sheep's Clothing" that tells you about the fiber characteristics of various breeds.  This will give your general description of breeds.  Different fiber flock breeders may have different results in their wool.

Google Fiber Mills in your area to see where you can pick up roving (or yarns) less expensively.  Or if you are wanting to learn to spin, chec,k our Abby's Youtube video.  Get yourself a dowel rod and a (couple)  wooden cabinet knob(s) & some small brass c hooks.  Drill a hole in the middle of the knob the same size as the rod.  put glue on the rod, put into knob. Put on the c hooks.  On one of your new spindles, put the c hook on the end closer to the knob (top whorl) and the other, put the c hook on the end of the rod farther from the know (bottom whorl).

There are plenty of flor right now for dyeing.  Most will result in brown, yellow or green.  blue & red (& thusly orange) are hard to come by but not impossible.

Get going now and collect up some golden rod.  Save all the onion skins (yellow & red) that you use.  Queens' Anne lace is another wonderful dye.  Get yourself some Alum from the dollar store to use as a mordant.

There is NO reason you can't do this!!!

Just DO IT!

(Pumped up enough???}

[rhiannon.douglas]

I'll add my enthusiastic encouragement for anyone who is thinking of learning to dye/spin/knit/crochet.

I had always thought it would be so difficult, but with the availability of youtube tutorials and the spinners guilds that are around it is easy to get the skills!

Dyeing and spinning are so enjoyable, you feel productive and end up with something that you can sell/barter or turn into clothes etc. I will never get over being able to turn a bunch of 'fluff' into yarn, and yarn into clothing.

From a survival perspective, sheep can give you both meat and wool, they are self perpetuating, wool is one of the best insulators available. You will never run out of clothes.

[Sister Wolf]

I learned to spin after Muller's encouragement!!!  I absolutely love it.  Been doing it for a couple of months now.

[archer]

yah SisWolf!

[Mullers Lane Farm]

Hazzah SisterWolf!

Update on the onion dyed yarn.  It was used to make mittens & hat for my daughter-in-love (since my color-blind son told me her favorite colors were yellow & pink).  Since then, I've learned her real favorite colors are purple & green ... which makes a lot more sense for a lady of ginger persuasion!