Pickin' n Grinnin'

Back to fiber processing. This morning I was able to go from this:
















to this:























by way of this:



















in about half an hour. That's several hours of manual labor shortened by the Patrick Green Triple Picker. I'm a happy spinner!


I'm in the midst of a project that's taking me from the original silver/gray Coopworth fleece (from Cedaredge Farm in Roebuck, SC), through the washing, dyeing, picking, carding, and blending to make yarn for a very special vest. So far, so good. With a huge thanks to Diana, my color guru in Alabama.

Ta-Da! Handspun Sock

Note I didn't say "socks." I'm only 50% finished with these. I posted earlier about spinning for this pair of socks, but just to show the difference between the fiber and the finished product:





I used 2 plies from the Louet Northern Lights top (Picasso colorway), and added a strand of bright blue wooly nylon, courtesy of Janis. I just adore the result. The sock reminds me of some of the colorways available in sock yarns when I first started knitting socks in the mid-90's. I made no effort to control the color, I just took what I got.

The yarn is about 12 wpi (sport/dk range), knitted at a fingering gauge (8.25 st/in) on 2.75mm double points. It's a hefty sock. Now to cast on the second one......

Green, Green

So what's my favorite color?

Oh, one of my new favorite fiber processing tools - a cheap (under $3) salad spinner from Wal-Mart.

Exhausted!

Meaning the dyebath. Here's the "exhaust fiber" on the drying rack:

Meaning also Diana and me. Non-stop fiber fun and knitting and spinning can really take it's toll on a girl! Plus she drove from and to Montgomery this weekend.

But here's some of what we were up to:

This is Diana's growing, slowly reproducing box of wool (or so it seemed - just open a 10-lb. box of Brown Sheep mill ends and see what happens!).

Here are a couple of our better "oops!" happenings:

I wanted red over the black/white Brown Sheep mill ends. Diana nicknamed this one "Barbie meets a dead skunk." She fixed it for me - it's red now.

And here's Diana's "snow fiber." It's thawing out; yep, we're calling it snow fiber because we discovered it this morning under the snow on the deck. It tried to escape off the deck yesterday afternoon, but apparently made it no further than the ramp before being stopped. There it lay, becoming covered by the overnight snow and in danger of vanishing until spring (or this afternoon, actually). I had the rare inclination to clear the snow off the ramp this morning, or it might have missed it's ride to Montgomery.

It was a super fun weekend, and one we'd like to repeat!