This one, not so good,

but I still got some good things done. Check-up took ALL morning. Boo. Couldn't find things I was looking for at the store, particularly another large, cheap stainless steel pot. Anybody got any stainless steel pots they don't want any more? Large ones?

I DID get four skeins of the pygora dyed; two in seafoam and two in midnight blue. Very nice. And, Pam at Knitter's Palette called wanting more goods; I'll take that any day!

Maybe tomorrow will go smoother...

Another good, productive day

...or two, actually; a dyeing day is always followed by a rinsing and drying day. Bamboo in particular has to be rinsed and rinsed--the reds never do stop bleeding--and then it takes a long time to dry.

Tomorrow I do more...and go to the doctor for my strained knee. I banged it a while ago, and I think I'm doing too much with it, but it's not going to get any rest till the end of July. :-(

A lot done

No new pix today; those really won't be coming so often as I am doing a lot with colorways that I have already photographed.

I am very pleased with what I got done today, though. One pound of bamboo blend yarn, one pound of silk blend yarn, one pound of BFL top in two colorways, and a pound and a quarter of bamboo top. I think that's a personal best.

I also did one entire colorway using only the new dyes; it remains to be see what it looks like after it's washed and rinsed, but I have good hopes that it will be recognizably the same colors as before.

I think tonight I will not be so inclined to lie in bed fretting about what didn't get done today and wanting to get up in the middle of the night and go to work.

One of the good things

about the Huge Moth Scare was that I found a fleece I had bought last winter and hadn't washed yet. It's washing up beautifully. I have fleeces in black, gray, and white, and I'm thinking of packaging them up for folks who might want to play with clean, washed fleece when I go down to Midwest.

Wow

So much has been going on. Unfortunately, a lot of it isn't fiber related. Boo.

I have started dyeing up some beautiful silk blend yarn I have. I'm very pleased with it, particularly as it's a new dye formulation. I have had to switch to a vendor that can actually give me as much dye as I want when I want it, and I have added in the dry chemicals to make it work. The chemicals have much more bulk than the dye, which makes precise measurement much easier, and so gives me repeatable colors. AND, I can buy the chemicals by the 50-pound sack for extremely cheap. It's all good.

This is Silk Blend Medeterranean; this photo is too purple, it really is a deep, rich blue and I'm very pleased with it.

I can haz pygora!!!

Sorry for the lol-cats speak; sometimes it just takes me that way.

I will have a limited amount of laceweight pygora/merino blend for Midwest. For those who do not know, pygora is a cross between the pygmy and angora goats. Angoras produce mohair, and the fiber from pygoras is yummy and soft; very special indeed. It is still quite rare and I am fortunate to have found a connection. I'll let you know more when my order comes.

My dear patient friends...

I've been a Bad Blogger this past few weeks, and it's not going to be any better this weekend; I'm going Up Nort' for a living history show. But, when I get back, it will be dye, dye, dye until Midwest Fiber, so I hope I'll be a better correspondent then. Lately I've been stuck on questions like: how many colors beyond primaries should I keep on hand, and which ones? The fact that I have actual wool samples from Prochem and only printed colors from Dharma is not helpful...

I'm going to the Fair!!!

Yippee! I got the word this morning that I'm going to Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair, in Crystal Lake, IL, July 17-19.

I now need to cough up lotso money for the space and for an ad in the program book. And I need to buy yet more dye (I dyed bamboo last night and was shocked to see how much of my fiber-reactive primaries I'd used up.) Wow.

I think I might hold off on setting up the Etsy store until fall. How much can I do all at once???

OK, now it's getting scary

I had been doing my wool dyeing with Gaywool dyes, which come in nice colors and are very easy to use, but they are not cheap and it is not always possible to get what I want, when I want it. So, I'm going to have to go to Jaquard dyes, which require mixing with acid. So, I finally went out and opened an account at a chemical company; the minimum first order is $250, so I now have 100 lb of citric acid, 50 lb of alum for mordanting, 50 lb of soda ash and 50 lb of urea for bamboo dyeing.

I guess I'd better do some dyeing...

Recovering limited typing

Last week I was prying a plant out of my garden; it gave way all of a sudden and I fell to the left. I seemed not much the worse for wear, but over the next few days it hurt more and more to use my last three left fingers. Finally, on Sunday, we went to Fleet Farm for some stretch bandage and I've been taping my fingers every day. They are a good deal better tonight, so that's a relief. Just a mild sprain, I suppose, aggravated by bull-headed stubbornness.

For the record, in the horse doctoring section of Fleet Farm, you can get the stretchy, self-adhesive bandage that goes by the name Coban in the drugstore; $1.98 for a fetlock-sized roll in colors to match any racing silks... I cut down a roll and used 1/3 of the width for my hand...


More about fiber tomorrow. Glad to be back!

war injury

The garden got back at me--I have hurt my left hand & typing is difficult--will not be posting for a few days...