more fibers!

I received a box of animal friendly fibers from http://www.homesteadwoolandgiftfarm.com today. I can’t wait to spin them up. I plan on dyeing some of those coopworth locks in bright colors to blend with the alpaca once it is washed.

There is one pound of unwashed suri alpaca, 4 ounces of a mix of merino cross that has been dyed green, and 8 ounces of washed coopworth wool some of which is still in locks! On the left of the bag of alpaca is a small amount of alpaca that I washed to show what color it will be once it is cleaned.

Unfortunately this weekend has been very busy, and will be busy tomorrow too (husband’s grandfather’s 80th birthday), so I might not get to actually make anything for a few days 😦

purple madness

I think I was going through a bit of a girly phase when I spun this yarn up, albeit a goth girly phase. I started with white merino wool, alpaca, kid mohair, silk noil and pink dyed bamboo. I usually dye the bamboo fibers before I make a yarn like this, because bamboo uses a different kind of dye than the protein fibers.

alpaca, silk noil, merino wool, dyed bamboo, and kid mohair

Then I hand carded it into batts.

hand carded batt

Then I drafted the batts into a thin roving.

roving

Then I spun it up.

on the bobbin

I then spun a single of black merino carded with some kid mohair, and promptly plied the two together.

plied, before dyeing

Then, for added flair, into the dye pot it went. I used pink, purple and black acid dyes and came out with this:

finished yarn.

In the end I had about 2 ounces and 76 yards of girly goth yarn. My husband said it looks like it would make cool synthetic dreads.

purplely goodness

This was my first wheel spun yarn. I was overjoyed when I got my wheel, and could not wait to use it. Luckily I already had a few ounces of fiber ready to spin. Before my wheel arrived I had dyed up a bunch of fibers.

dyed merino wool, alpaca, silk noil, kid mohair, and bamboo

Then I hand carded them on my carders into fluffy little batts.

on the carders

a few batts

Once the batts were made I spun the yarn into a single on my wheel, but I don’t have any pictures of that. Then I plied with metallic purple thread.

on the bobbin

on the bobbin, with a puppy’s faces in the background

Then it was time to make it into a skein.

I was so proud of my first wheel spun yarn, I kept telling anyone who would listen all about it.