Yesterday was a beautiful day for outdoor fun. A perfect day for Dye Fest. Sitting under the trees on a bright sunny day, carding and chitchatting away. I could almost take a nap, too. Thanks to Garen, who opens up her home to host Dye Fest year after year. (She has a beautiful, spacious American Craftsman Style home with lots of big trees outside.) I don’t know how she does it. I would be a nervous wreck!

Unfortunately, the mini dye classes didn’t happen. That didn’t stop the fun, though. There were dye already mixed. There were steaming baskets and dye pots, both natural and chemical. And there were plenty of experts there. People just went at it. I ended up not doing any dyeing at all. (Yes Chris, that means the Shetland and BFL are safe. ) I wanted to do a more controlled experiment and thought I’d take up too much time and space. So, I just watched and tried to pick up as many ideas as I could. I also spent a lot of time carding cotton.

Not sure if I mentioned this. I was given bags and bags of unginned cotton about a year ago. I took some to Garen’s house to try carding them. The carding went well. I was beginning to get the feel for it. But I think I might have to let go of the cotton that I have. It’s filled with bits and pieces of crushed cotton bur. My guess is that it was machine harvested and the burs were crushed in the process. Carding did not take them out. I had to pick them out by hand a little bit at a time. Too time consuming. They may fall off when spun. But I think I’ll just get more CLEAN cotton to play with. I really do enjoy carding and making punis. One day I’ll have some cotton plants, too. Here’s a photo of the punis I made. Note the dirty bits:

I’ll be looking for takli spindles to buy. I tried spinning cotton with a small support spindle. Taklis will make plying easier. Just need to have something that will hold several spindles. I think I know just the person to ask to make one.

Below are some photos of Dye Fest. More can be found here.

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My order from Spunky Eclectic came earlier this week. The box wasn’t particular large. But it contained pounds of wool that I had been anxiously waiting for. I am quite happy with the quality.

The above is 4 oz of Galaxy Series, hand-painted natural colored Blue-Faced Leicester wool. Colorway Saturn. The colors are wonderful. Exactly what I was hoping for. Can you guess what I want to do with it? Morning Surf. Yes, I love that scarf! I think 4 oz is enough. I just don’t know when I’ll start this project. It is getting so warm here in So. Cal.

The above is 8 oz of naturally colored Blue-Faced Leicester wool. It’s considered a dark color by the vendor. From the book In Sheep’s Clothing, Blue-Faced Leicester wool is a good choice for strong and smooth fabric. Staple length 3-6 inches. It’s micron count is 28-24. Not as fine as Merino. I’ll have to do the next-to-the-skin test. Is there a good method? I might take this to -Dye Fest. Yes, I am going! Yay! Now I have to figure out the colors that I want to try.

Above is one pound of Black Shetland wool. The color is more dark chocolate than pure black. I wonder if I’ll get a ‘raven-like’ effect when I dye this at Dye Fest. Shetland has a micron count of 30-23. Staple length 2-5 inches.

Above is one pound of gray Icelandic wool. A really nice silvery gray. Feels a bit scratchy. My guess is that it has both the outer and inner coat fiber. I am not sure. I’ll have to handle it more to see. And you know I will. It’s micron count is 31-28 for outercoat, 22-19 for undercoat. Staple length is 4-10 inches for outercoat, 2-3 inches for undercoat. The book says that the if spun softly, the fiber from both coats can be used together for garments. This really needs planning. Anyone has any suggestion? I might take this to Dye Fest, too.

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The annual GLASG Dye Fest is coming up on June 28th. There are two mini workshops that I want to participate in. One on natural dyeing, the other on no-felt space dyeing. I just made a purchase on spunkyeclectic.com. Some gray Icelandic, some black Shetland and some dark brown Blue Faced Leicester. I want to experiment dyeing with naturally colored fiber. There will be many expert dyers there and I can expect excellent input. Can you guess why I got the black Shetland?

The thing is… this morning I found out that I might have to be in China on June 26th for room designs. ARRGGHH! Are you kidding me? The scheduling seems a little funny to me. Maybe there’s a mistake. I need to call Taiwan to confirm this. Of course I’ll go to China and miss the Dye Fest. But, but…..

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This last Saturday’s spinning guild meeting was quite fun and educational. We had Dr. Elizabeth Barber giving a lecture on ancient textiles. She was quite engaging and funny. Lots of interesting info. Ellen and Jerry were there, too! You can read more about the lecture on their blogs.

Then during Show & Tell, Ruth introduced us to the Caracol dye.

Caracol dye comes from the Caracol snails. No snails are harmed to get the dye. They release the liquid when handled in a certain way. Maybe a defense mechanism? The dye goes on the fabric kind of muddy green. After it is exposed to sunlight it turns magenta. Fascinating. You can see pictures of the snail on Ruth’s blog.

More photos here.

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Pictures below. Lots of pictures. We had great fun having a natural dye party at Patrice’s. Total of 11 people. Not everyone was into natural dyeing. We had knitting and spinning going on. Lovely conversations. And so relaxing. It’s been so busy for me lately that I really needed it.

Mariko brought tons of stuff. Plants, dye stock, pots, food and wine. Most of us also brought food to contribute to the potluck. Everything was delicious. Espeically Mariko’s salmon, which was grilled on the spot. She also made Japanese rice balls filled with picled cucumbers and wrapped in sheets of seaweed. I always wanted to try one of those. It was delicious! Helene’s couscous was fantastic too. She even packed some for me to take home.

Treating the fiber with different mordant.

Separating the flowers and the stems of the dahlias for different dye stock.

A toast to the veterans on Veteran’s Day.

John showed us his beautiful hand-spun, hand-dyed and handwoven pancho. The picture really doesn’t do it justice. I hope he will teach a class on making something like this. I would be the first one to sign up!

I missed most of the conversations. I was running taking pictures.

Kim getting a spinning lesson from Nancy.

Yup!

Lynn showed us her own design. She explained how she knitted it. If you look closely you’d see that it’s not plain knitting back and forth in a straight line. I don’t know how to explain it.

Jill’s beautiful hand-spun jewel-tone yarn. It’s really quite breath-taking.

This here is a pot of beautiful magenta dye stock. I always heard that natural dyeing stinks. I walked up to it. Leaned forward and took a whiff of it. “It’s not that bad. Kind of nice.” “What is it?” I asked. “It’s bugs,” said Patrice. “OH!” Slowly backing away. “How interesting!” They had prepared the dye stock the night before with ground cochineal insects. Did you think it was the dahlias?

Nap time!

Some of the experiment results.

And of course, we needed a group picture with the yarn.

Oh, click on any picture to go to my Flickr album for a larger view. There are more pictures in there too.

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