Working with Wool: Working Hard

[luvmypets]

Not sure, I think a bit of both. I will let ya know when I get it

 

[norseofcourse]

How colorfast are those natural dyes? I have NO idea if it would hold, but you get a lot of green water when you cook artichokes in a pressure cooker.

Natural dyes vary in how colorfast they are. Several things affect it, including what mordant you use (chemicals you treat the fiber with, to help the dye attach to the fiber better), and how much sun it gets (it'll often fade quicker if exposed to more sun). If you dye something with pokeweed and put it in a box in your closet, in ten years it'll still look pretty good. If you wear it out and about and wash it occasionally, it'll fade noticeably in under a year. But you can re-dye it Some of the other natural dyes are more resistant to fading.

The mordant can also change what color a plant gives you. According to one book I have, plantain gives a 'pea soup green' color with a copper mordant, but a bright gold color with a tin mordant, and yellow-green with dyer's alum for a mordant. However most people just use dyer's alum for a mordant, since there's toxicity issues with many of the other mordants.

There's some good books on dye plants and dyeing, many tell or show what colors you get with the different mordants, what part of the plant to use, and other good info. Artichoke water might give a nice green; how colorfast it would be, you'd have to give it a try!

 

[luvmypets]

Just picked up my wheel!

 

[Hens and Roos]

very nice!!

 

[Bruce]

Don't tell my DD1

 

[Baymule]

I am so impressed! That is one fine looking spinning wheel! Do you knit and crochet too? That is one art that I always wanted to learn. Your dye colors look so pretty!

 

[mygoldendoe]

Got caught up on some older threads today. Love your dying job. That's one thing I wish we had time to do. Spinning on my Ashford traveler has been put back as my 3yo and 8mo are in the phases of high dependency right now.
Have you spun a lot on your wheel to learn it's rhythms? Mines 16yrs old when I got it (I'm its second owner) and iv had it for 6yrs now so it's 22yrs old. I love how well they hold up. Mines still spinning away. I know u said yours was ancient, did the repair ppl give you an estimated age? What size flyer and bobbins did you end up getting? I wanna invest in a jumbo size bc I like making bulky yarn sometimes. I have tight tention when I crochet and knitting so I prefer to work with the 3ply it larger so I don't hurt my hands. I also work fast once I get into rhythm so circular needles help some tho on the smaller ply yarns.

 

[luvmypets]

Got caught up on some older threads today. Love your dying job. That's one thing I wish we had time to do. Spinning on my Ashford traveler has been put back as my 3yo and 8mo are in the phases of high dependency right now.
Have you spun a lot on your wheel to learn it's rhythms? Mines 16yrs old when I got it (I'm its second owner) and iv had it for 6yrs now so it's 22yrs old. I love how well they hold up. Mines still spinning away. I know u said yours was ancient, did the repair ppl give you an estimated age? What size flyer and bobbins did you end up getting? I wanna invest in a jumbo size bc I like making bulky yarn sometimes. I have tight tention when I crochet and knitting so I prefer to work with the 3ply it larger so I don't hurt my hands. I also work fast once I get into rhythm so circular needles help some tho on the smaller ply yarns.

I haven't tried spinning on my wheel in a month or so. Quite frankly I haven't had the patience, as the drive band constantly falls off. I think we will invest in a nice new wheel. Considering I will have 9 alpacas and 3 sheep to get wool from in spring, I have my work cut out for me and there is no way I will be able to spin significant amounts of fleece on my old saxony.

 

[mygoldendoe]

What kind of drive band do u use? I know some ppl prefer cotton or hemp but I use elastic. Mine stretches from time to time and have had to cut and melt back together. When I first started using my wheel I didn't know you had to drop the tention at the flyer and take the band off to store it so mine stretched more often than normal. I also didn't realize how tight it had to be...Do u think where the rats had got at the groove on the wheel is why it isn't staying on? If that's the case have you tried a putty to help build back up on it?

 

[luvmypets]

Been forever since I updated! I ended up getting a single-pedal Louet for my birthday. I spun a bobbin of natural colored romney but since then(march) I haven't really had the motivation. Part of it was I was waiting for shearing but now that that is done I have no more excuses. I finally am starting up with the whole thing again. I took some of my romney roving and practiced spinning as it has been a while. For the first half hour the overspin was terrible! But I finally got the yarn nice, thin, and consistent. In the picture you can see as it goes to the left the yarn starts looking good.

Here is a picture of my louet

Another thing I did was I picked the fleece I took from Buster, one of our alpacas who passed away in January. There wasn't too much debris, mostly pieces of straw. After I got all the yuck out I put it in a wash. After school today I will be putting it out to dry.