Frustration, Fun, Fumes and FOOTNOTES!

OOF! Dye fumes are all in my head and my brain, while the muddle of color and swirls is really pretty, its not really helping me stay on topic. It's entirely possible that I won't be entirely coherent in writing this. See, I've already been redundant at LEAST twice! In an effort to keep my tangents from destroying the coherency of my post, I have added footnotes.

I spent ALL DAY yesterday dying and carding and dying and carding. It was AWESOME.

Remember that GIANT bag of stinky unwashed fleece that Riastiltskein and I washed a few weeks back? Well, we're still working on that but, now(1) we have a drum carder!!! Sort of. It is a drum carder and it is awesome and all the pieces are there but, and it's a big but(2), the drive band is stretched beyond use. As a result I'd need to have three or four hands to run it efficiently. I'm managing though. It takes me substantially longer to card a full batt than it ought to but it sure is nice to be able to blend the fleece evenly and card it into big batts rather than the tiny ones we get off our impromptu hand-carders(3). It's not a brand-name drum carder so I'm gonna have an interesting time trying to find a band that fits it properly... That's an adventure for a later date.

All my carding was between dyeings which was my main focus yesterday and also the cause of my befuddlement(4). I dyed about 10 small batched of roving in different colors to card together into batts for the "Learn to Spin" kits I'm building for our upcoming DIY fair in Napa, CA. I've been using three different dyes each with a different fixing agent so the smell of our apartment was... interesting, to say the least. I can hardly wait to have a place with a yard that I can set up a dedicated dying table in(5). We had all the windows open but I'm pretty sure that wasn't enough.
My brain may not be up for math or logic today but I'm already plotting more dying tomorrow.

I keep promising pics of all the neat stuff we're cooking up, but I seem to have thoroughly misplaced the charger for my camera. I'll have to steal the Boy's so I can document some of these beautiful colors here(6). Look for more updates in the next week as we work our fingers raw to get ready for the InDIYpendent Culture Faire.

(1)Cue fanfare!
(2)I do NOT like big butts and I might be lying about that any other time I say it.
(3)They're two dog brushes bought at petsmart. While it might have been a good idea if we were just fluffing up some roving, they are unfortunately not made to withstand the wear and tear of carding this volume of knotted fleece en masse. Go figure.
(4)Ooh! Shiny! Aw...it's just a gum wrapper...damn. See? 'Train of Thought' has not only been derailed but has forgotten that it needs those rails and has continued to speed down the hill at breakneck speeds.
(5)Keeping in mind that this may be years off, I really do wonder how much of my brain will be left by then. At least It'll be the prettiest thing on the autopsy table. They'll cut my open and go "Holy, hopping unicorns! This girls insides are sparkly rainbows, and she has the full palate in her skull instead of a brain. No wonder she produced such nifty color-weighs. Unfortunately cause of death was a spectral overdose." Did I mention I watched a lot of Bones and Castle yesterday too?
(6) I'm of the "Pics, or it didn't happen" mentality. Probably because of my crappy memory.

Phase two!

Phase two, the spinning begins.  I sat down and got a 2 ply skein of light fingering weight yarn spun up today.   

 Here is the first bobbin of it spun before plying. 

We have a buttload more of roving to spin.  Freya dyed an entire pound. It is superwash though, so it is spinning up slightly differently. I am really enjoying it.  In addition to the pound of dragon that I am working on that is slowly taking over my life and room, I have a few updates on personal projects.  I went to Maker Faire about a month ago and bought a oz braid of roving that was solar dyed, a process that we are thinking of exploring here at Wildwoodyarn.  I didn't get around to getting Freya to take a picture of it before I spun it, since she is far better about pictures and the blogging, but here is it all spun up.  

  

I am not sure what I want to do with it yet.  I think I want to make something for my friend that took me to Maker Faire, but I'm not sure what.  However, it will have to take the back burner while I get our new color-ways spun up.