submitting

here's the yarn stash i'm taking to the georgia national fair. it is a nice assortment of colors i think. there are definitely some which i will be keeping (they're so pretty, it would be hard to part from them), and some i will post to etsy when the fair is over. other entries you may have seen before if you read this blog; mini quilts, lap quilt, various cushions, weavings, smocked pin, beaded pin, etc.

mmm...sorbet

after making some adaptations to my flax wheel (mainly replacing the flyer hooks and smoothing the orifice), it spins a little better. i was able to spin up a pink batt i had made the other day; it reminds me mostly of raspberry sorbet.

a snowball?

well, i managed to squeeze all of the alpaca on the drop spindle, and it doesn't look so much like a drop spindle as a softball with an antennae (or a jack in the box head). i wound it off, skeined it, and fulled it, and now have a lovely bundle of white alpaca laceweight.

i've been playing with the idea of dyeing it a soft aubergine with cochineal, but figured perhaps the white plainness may work in my favor. maybe. just guessing really. not going on any data to back this hypothesis up. we'll know in a month though, won't we?

the muslin sacks are all sewn up, corded, and tagged. it's a good thing i thought of labeling, as they're mostly indistinct from one another. i feel almost like a bank robber with sacks of money; hey, it's what they look like to me.

after picking up some color grown cotton roving yesterday, i'm down to two empty sacks. hmm. luckily i have enough cord and material for several more, and they're quick and easy to sew up.

cushions, pincushions, pins and...yarn!

i've added some of the yarn i've been spinning to my etsy page. there's so many gorgeous yarns throughout etsy, i think mine may become quickly lost! it would be great if there were local craft shows in savannah, i could think of a few people who would want to share a booth.

i did some logwood dyeing today, and have a bit of fiber soaking in a jar of lichen dye. when i look at the dyebath after the first batch of fiber is dyed there is still so much dyestuff left in it, but the next batch of premordanted fibers come out in such pale shades, even though i soak them overnight in the cooling water. i completely don't get it. it's like this for all of the dyes i've been using; cochineal, kamala, osage, logwood, madder, teal. i hate having to dump the remaining stuff in my compost if it's still usable, so i wish i could figure it out. i think perhaps a posted question to the natural dyes group is needed.