Lambtown--a brief review

Early Saturday morning, Kathleen, Sara and I headed to Dixon for Lambtown. Fortunately, the weather was on our side this year in that it wasn't unbearably hot. Once there we headed straight for the fiber vendors hall. I promptly scurried over to Carolina Homespun's booth because Morgaine was holding these for me.

A pair of wool combs! Not that I have ever used combs and will probably injure myself using them, I had to have them for my cormo fleece, which I'm almost finished washing.

When I returned to A Verb for Keeping Warm and Tactile's spaces, Sara was busy cobbling together a fresh out of the box Louet Julia. We then visited most of the vendors before the need for coffee and food got the better of me. I staked out a place on the grass in the shade and soon a bunch of friends were sitting, eating, laughing, spinning and knitting. All in all, an excellent day.

I also did a little dying and plying on Sunday. On the top is Henry's Attic Kona handpainted with cochineal and madder using what I learned from Scout. On the bottom is BFL that I dyed with black walnut and spin into a two ply fingering weight. I haven't decided what I want to knit with the Kona. I'm thinking of using the handspun for a pair of Breakfast at Cafe du Monde Gloves.

Experimenting

I've been busy experimenting with natural dyes. Last weekend I dyed up the last of my white BFL with cochineal and marigold. Here's what it looked like before I overdyed it.


I'd been inspired by some lavender growing in my neighborhood. So I overdyed it with logwood grey and got this.
I like the soft colors a lot.

I also experimented with an improvised wool hackle made from a hair pick and a table vise.

It works and is a lot less expense than buying a hackle. I'm going to keep playing with this set up until I decide whether or not I really like blending on a hackle enough to sink some money into a better set up, which will probably be homemade as well. Here's the first roving I pull off of the hackle.


Right now Ada is blocking. I used my Knitter's Blocks and steam blocked the top. I'll have to block the garter portion separately. I'm half through knitting the first sleeve and so far, so good.

A weekend of natural dyeing

I spent last weekend dyeing BFL with marigold (grown by me last summer), cochineal, and black walnut. These were all kettle dyed.

Marigold.

Cochineal; it's a bit darker in real life.

Black walnut; I was going for a color that reminds me of coffee with lots of cream. This is pretty close.

I also got these in the mail.

Blackbird from Butterfly Girl Designs, a blend of 60% merino, 30% bamboo and 10% nylon firestar; it appeals to my inner magpie!

Dance of the Dervish BFL from Crown Mountain.