Tag Archives: corriedale

September 26, 2013 · 2:39 pm

Further experiments in converting textile waste

I have been wondering about trying some more spinning experiments with waste from the overlocker and the carding process.  There is nothing like yarn bombing to make me consider any kind of yarn useable!  Yarn bombing is even more forgiving than teapots when it comes to the texture and qualities of the fibre concerned… and there is an argument for only using fibres that can’t be made into clothing or blankets for yarn bombing, I think.  So in a  burst of carding enthusiasm, I’ve been preparing batts.

First up, carding waste (corriedale dyed with eucalypt), overlocker waste (from bag making, mostly–silk, cotton, linen and some polyester blend) and some polwarth locks to hold it all together.  Here it is going into the drum carder:

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Carded and ready to spin.

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More fabric scraps and overlocker thread in some parts than others…

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While I was on the job, I carded some rough lavender wool of unknown origin.  It was discarded by the felting group at the Guild: say no more!   I re-washed it, which improved its texture and cleanliness somewhat…

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The felters also passed on this green fibre of unknown origin, which was improved very much by re-washing and carded out beautifully.  I have added dyed mohair locks and silk noil, and we’ll see if it can become a repectable art yarn.

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Carding waste from those two batts and some more overlocker waste…

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I’ll report back when I’ve tried turning these away from the waste stream and into something of use!

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September 12, 2013 · 12:38 pm

Fibre processing continues…

For those who are wondering… the nettle stems are back in the retting wheelbarrow for now. So I return to our regularly scheduled fibre–wool.

All I want to say about this last Polwarth fleece, with the prickly seedheads and the tips that were spiny and pulled off… is that I have reached the end of it.  Here it is–the last of it–!  It will be keeping toes warm for years to come once these slippers are felted. I do not need to spin more of it, ever.  The fleece from this sheep’s sibling, and fleece from this sheep in other years, are lovely, and I will return to those in time.

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Next stop on the fibre processing journey is a Corriedale fleece one of my co-workers gave me (in 2011!! I wrote the date down).  I dyed some greasy a year or so ago and it came out badly.  I can be put off by experiences like that, which so often indicate the current limitations of my skills or patience, or both.  I put the Corriedale down and haven’t come back to it for at least a year.  It does have vegetable matter in it, but it is otherwise a lovely fleece.  I weighed the remainder and there was 2.3 kg still to wash.  It’s in a yellow plastic bag designed for a double bed feather quilt.

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I sat a kilogramme of it to soak cold for a few days, because I’ve seen this suggested on Ravelry and it makes good sense as a first stage in getting mud, as well as grease, out of the fleece.  having tried it now, I would definitely use this process again.

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This kilogramme is now clean and drying, and that leaves only 1.3kg of this fleece yet to be washed.  After that, only one more Polwarth fleece left to wash. I admit, a Polwarth is a mighty big sheep.  However, this is the closest I have been in years to having the fleece stash clean and ready to spin!

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July 13, 2013 · 2:38 pm

Tour de Fleece continues…

Have I mentioned that I’m participating in the Tour de Fleece, spinning each day during the Tour de France?  Clearly this strikes a lot of people as a truly bizarre and quaint pastime. I am not an especially sports loving person, so from my point of view, this is great sport!

I have been spinning more of my eucalyptus dyed grey corriedale.  I loved the 3 ply yarn I made from it, but it isn’t going to make gauge for the cardigan I now have in mind and will stripe in a way that won’t work for it either.  This may be a clue that I should make the cardigan from some other fibre, of course, but I decided to try 2 ply, which raises entirely different issues about colour blending.

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I’m struggling to get the colours to show right in photos… but this approach clearly will even out the colour variations without making them disappear.  And perhaps it is time to try a swatch to discover how I am doing on gauge.  I have been feeling squeamish since plying… two plies of different colours is not something I would usually be aiming to achieve.  My beloved has offered the view that the yarn is lovely and will look ‘tweedy’, which sounds good to me…

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July 4, 2013 · 8:34 am

Eucalyptus colours over grey wool

I have a lot of Polwarth fleece, both brown and variegated white/tan. All of it gifted from pet sheep that live nearby.  It is a privilege and it is also a difficulty.  Washing fleece so fine and so greasy has been intimidating as well as slow.  I have spun some in the grease, and washed some twice, and tried several different washing approaches.  I have dyed and spun and spun and dyed.  Two and three ply, corespun. you name it! I spun and knit an entire cardigan from naturally brown Polwarth, too.

And then one day someone at Guild said “I hate fine fleeces!” in my hearing, and it occurred to me that I do not have to spin it for the rest of my life.  I lashed out and bought a considerable quantity (3.5 kg) of grey Corriedale (nothing to approach the stash of Polwarth, mind you) and it has been heavenly.  I love grey fleece, and this is the loveliest corriedale I’ve ever had the pleasure to spin.

I have been dyeing it with eucalypt leaves and bark.  I have oranges of many shades from rust and brick to flame to gentle sunset.

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I have burgundy and plum.

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And I also have some tans and walnuts.  It appears I collected some bark that wasn’t exactly what I thought I had collected.  But to be honest, I think these are lovely additions in this context.  I’ve begun spinning yarns of many hues, chain plying to maintain the colour contrasts.  Lovely.  It’s hard to believe I can find these colours through combining bark and hot water and time with wool.

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Now… I have figured out that what I would really like to do with at least some of this wool is knit a particular cardigan.  And my beautful 3 ply yarn is too thick to make gauge for it!  Possibly also for the design I have in mind those colour changes will not be ideal.  So, I am about to embark on two ply yarns.  This is my Tour de Fleece project.

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June 12, 2013 · 9:38 am

Plum Pine 2: Mordant and Modifiers

Having had success with a test dyebath, I made a point of returning to Botanic Park to collect more fruit on weekend, en route to celebrating World Wide Knit in Public Day.  I dyed some grey corriedale locks in my test bath and they went from grey to a dull brownish shade, so I opted for superwash + alum and silk as the most likely candidates for success. I mordanted sock yarn of antiquity (picked up at a garage sale) and prepared another dyebath.  I regard sock yarn as a no risk option.  If I knit socks for a friend, I can make an open offer to re-dye at any point they fade to an unacceptable shade (and I can ask how they’re faring under normal wear and washing).

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The dye bath looked fantastic.

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I ran two baths with this fruit, because the first one produced purple on my alum mordanted skeins of sock yarn (wool-nylon).  I pulled it out of the bath after dark and in artificial light it looked quite brown. So I dropped the skeins back in the bath for the night and put test samples into an iron bath and a vinegar bath. Next morning the sock yarn was purple! The exhaust dyebath was a lighter and browner shade of mauve.  I apologise for these photos but it’s winter here and sunlight is in short supply.

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My tiny skeins of silk thread came out various shades of rose pink through to magenta too… and I have embarked on an embroidery project, so that was exciting.  The shades on the right are both using vinegar in the dyebath.

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The modifiers were interesting: the wool+alum strand was noticeably more purple with vinegar and noticeably more brown/grey with iron, which is, I think, about what should be expected.  So… a promising beginning to experiments with a new dye plant–but with no sense yet of how washfast or lightfast it might be.

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May 1, 2013 · 1:48 pm

Alpaca preparation

I’ve been having a lovely time spinning alpaca given to me by a generous friend.  She gave me samples of three different fleeces, white, black and what she rather fetchingly calls ‘champagne’.  I’ve been combing it and spinning it two ply and I’m very happy with the results.

I told my friend how lovely I thought the alpaca was, and she gave me more!  I have spun alpaca before, sometimes in quite a large quantity, but this has the longest staple I have ever seen, about 90 mm (these are the 90 mm matches I use to light to the dye pots–extra long.

I have to confess I have never washed alpaca, and it is always filthy, since alpacas roll and dust bathe.  My chooks dust bathe too, and watching them,  it’s no wonder that sand falls out of this fleece any time I move it! This fleece had so much dust in it that combing it was an outside activity that gave me hayfever.  I spun a lot of the white fleece rinsed and combed (that stopped the hayfever at least).  Then, I decided to brace myself and washed the rest of it.  And that led to dyeing the unspun fibre, as it turned out.  I have been working my dyepots hard experimenting toward red and…

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I am getting more interesting colours on silk thread (wrapped around the cards at left) than ever before.  My friends agree that the alpaca on the left, first through the dye bath, is red, then there is grey corriedale (second pass, same dye bath), more alpaca (third pass, still the same dyebath) and some still damp alpaca (fourth pass).  Three cheers for the potential to spin alpaca of many colours!

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March 24, 2013 · 5:11 pm

After Bendigo

Last year I went to the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show with a friend.  We had a great time, and I spent plenty!  Just recently I decided to spin some of the prepared fibre I bought there.  This is grey merino/llama/silk dyed by the Thylacine in Evandale.  It was luscious to spin and inspired me to get back to dyeing over grey fleece. I chain-plied it to maintain distinct colours.

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I bought some Raxor batts: Corriedale x English Leicester and Blue-faced Leicester in ‘Before dawn’.  Clearly also from my grey period.  I core spun these over a crossbred grey wool core. The pink skein is chain plied merino/bamboo dyed ‘berry lush’ from Kathys Fibres.  All a delight to spin.

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February 26, 2013 · 10:31 am

Spinning

I loved running workshops over summer, but it has also been a treat to return to my spinning wheel.  This skein began as grey corriedale fleece.  I dyed it in the grease with Earth Palette dyes, carded, and pulled a roving directly from the drum carder through a diz.  I have seen this technique demonstrated on YouTube, but I was only prepared to try it after someone from my Guild (who is a fabulous spinner) showed a group of us how she does it.

I like the colour, and enjoyed the process of producing roving.  Being able to dye in the grease is one of the things that has me returning to Earth Palette dyes. It improves my pleasure in scouring, and makes me content with scouring small quantities.   Does my impatience show?

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One of the workshops I ran over summer was on ‘fancy yarns’–artyarns to the inhabitants of the internet–and it has been good to come back to spinning the kind of yarns I prefer to knit.  I love the challenge of artyarn spinning, and the results, but I am a plain spinner in my heart, apparently.  This is relaxing spinning for me and I’m enjoying relaxing a little.  The yellow/green/blue corriedale that I dyed at the same time has already become a beanie for a dear friend’s birthday, even though there will be no call for him to wear it for some months yet!

Dyeing over a grey base has pleased me so much that I want to return to trying it with eucalypts.  I guess I’d better get over myself about scouring…

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