Spinning with pure French Angora

Hi All, I have been emailing back and forth with a woman my friend Joansie introduced me to, and talking about purchasing a bunn to replace our poor lost Goudy. (So named for his agouti coloring). Someone, either deliberately or accidentally left the door to his hutch open and he escaped. I've been searching and searching. Now, I'm looking to buy another bunn. I've never had one before, and they're addictive. Sweet, funny, tempermental... ah, but I digress.

Janice lets spinners spin her angora to help pay for a rabbit, as part of a barter. Then, she sells the yarn for a profit to help maintain her rabbitry. While I've spun angora blends, it is NOTHING like spinning pure angora. First, its slippery as hell. Very much like cria alpaca (which I love to spin). Both required extra twist to hold them together, and then I Navaho plyed (3ply) my small sample to make the following butterfly of yarn:

Tell me what you think of my effort. The fiber wasn't combed, carded, picked or washed. Please keep that in mind.

(ETA: The server is down for maintenance. I'll add the pictures as soon as they come up again)





Live well, and dye happy,

Leah.

Keeping my Promise.

I promised some pics, so here they are:

This is a blank I dyed from my Sulfer Cosmos. The brilliant orange is with alum, the darkest orange is alum with an ammonia afterwash. I love how the colors come out. I'm planning on a 2nd dye with Annato to fill the white area with some yellow. Next time I plan on folding the blank (which I made myself) along the wide axis instead of the long one (if that makes sence). So each row will have all three colors. This blank is double stranded, so I will have 2x the yarn. One to share, one to keep.

I ran into a friend at a local craft store. Joansie and I had previously met at a knitting group in the local library, and again in a class (I think). Neither of us was in a rush, so we stopped to chat over coffee. She showed me a sweater she wasn't sure about. WASN"T SURE ABOUT??? The sweater was a lovely shade of blue with intricate cablework on the back and an interesting cable along the front. I wish I'd had a camera with me. (I only had a wallet, not even my phone).

She's an amazing knitter, so we're going to trade knitting lessons for dying lessons! (Fun but messy work). I had my Bosworth Charkha in the car, and since she'd never seen one she took pictures for her blog (which I bootlegged for mine).

This is getting the charkha ready to spin.
Here I'm spinning, then drawing the cotton puni out to make the thread. Once I get going I can turn the wheel and draw the thread at the same time. Just takes practice.
Here I'm packing things away. I always take fiber with me so I'm ready to spin any time I wish. The Bosworths make an amazing instrument, and theres enough room for me to take puni's along with me in the casing.
Ta Dah! My amazing Bosworth charkha and I!

All in all it was a fun day.

Live well and dye happy,

Leah

Raining Tears

Its a sad day here in Vermont. The dark sky, wind and rain match my mood perfectly. Someone opened the door of my rabbit hutch, and either my male Goudy escaped or was taken. While I was searching for him in the rain I came across some mushrooms that I hadn't seen before.



Moving L to R, top to bottom:
This was big, the top felt slimy and it was a neutral color with areas of yellow and red. The gills were a cream color. The inside of the stalk was pithy and white. The next mushroom was darker than shown here. Almost a blackish brown with a leathery texture. The gills are cream with a black/brown edge. The stem was brown (see the next picture for a side view). The center mushroom was slimy, and bright yellow. As it sat, the top took on a pinkish hue. The fungus on the far right, row 2 was fairly nondescript and felt like it was covered in snot. Gooey. The interesting part was underneath. The underside was spongy, not gilled and a bright yellow color. Last, a nondescript mushroom that was cup shaped. Light tan on top and below.

So, anybody know what these are? Are any good for dyeing?

My other big news is the Skein winder I built (DIY style). I'll post pics later when its completed.

Live well and dye happy.

Leah

Days are growing shorter

The days are growing shorter, and my garden still hasn't given me the indigo seeds I'll need to start up next seasons dye garden. I've never collected seed before, so I'm not entirely certain when the right time to collect the blossoms would be. Last night was the first hard frost. I knew it was coming, so I covered all my sensitive plants with a heavy plastic. It looks like the plants survived just fine. LOL, its like having a pet. Open the tarps in the am, and close them in the pm. Make sure they have enough sun and water.... you know the deal.

I'm also running out of time right now. I'm buying a new house and putting this one on the market. Next year I won't even be here to enjoy the wild flower patch I planted. Fortunately, the place I'm buying has pleanty of land, and I plan on clearing a small field and laying down seed on a larger scale. Still lots of dye plants! I'm going to get one last pot of black eyed susans this season, and then I'll harvest a few plants to take with me. Moving is a pain!

The seed saving for the sulfer cosmos, coriopsis tinctora, marigolds, Hopi Black Dye Sunflowers and Red Dye Amaranth have all been successful. So, LETS GO INDIGO!!!

Live well and dye happy,

Leah

Animals lining up 2 by 2

Hi All, I had planned on talking to you all about the amazing crop of indigo I'm still harvesting. I would have talked about how all the seed heads are starting to bloom, and I would have expressed my hopes for a solid crop of seeds. INSTEAD, I get to tell you about the torrential downpour that has lasted about a week, and share my concerns that I'll have anything left of a garden at all after the rain finishes battering my poor plants. "SIGH"

I'm not down though. I just finished packing about 50 pounds of raw fiber into my prius, along with my knitting, my travel wheel, my charkha and my knitting (did I mention clothes and toiletries??) I'm headed to Tunbridge for the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival tomorrow morning. 2 wonderful (WET) days of fiber, classes, spinning, and being around other people who share my interests in fiber work. PLUS, I'm turning all the fiber mentioned above over to Zellingers to be processed into roving. Tunis, alpaca and nylon, corriedale plus silk and mohair, and all the different combinations I can make with the fiber I'm turning in for processing.

I'm going to be looking out for tools and fiber and wonderful fibery goodness in all shapes and sizes at the festival. Hopefully, by the time I get back the garden will be dry. I have to start tagging the plants I want to dig and take with me!!!

Live well and dye happy!

Leah