Rose Hairstick

I noticed I never showed a picture of my favorite hairstick of all time. I picked this up from Fleur du Jour at the Renaissance Faire in May, and I intend to pick up another one next May if they come again. They don't have a website nor an Etsy shop, which is a shame. Now, I'm fully aware they are not the only ones that make dipped resin rose jewelries, but they are the only ones that make dipped resin rose hair sticks, and mama needs some hairsticks! 

I am aware that if I get desperate enough I can make my own, but that involves learning how to finish wood and make little wood dowels. Otherwise I'm pretty sure you just stick the wood sticks into the roses, secure with some resin/glue, then dip the roses in resin until you have enough coating on it to protect the roses, then glue on some fake leafs. Sounds easy enough but how do you make little wood sticks with finish? Sigh. I'm tempted to get some dowels from Michaels, sharpen the tip with a pencil sharpener, learn to finish the dowel, and see if I can make this hairstick thing happen. I love it so much but why can't I find the shop online? 

Dye Day 2012 Follow Up Post 1

I spun some samples and spun up one of the 2 oz braids that I painted on Dye Day.

The samples turned out like this:

2012 GLASG Dye Festival

Every year, around the end of June, members of GLASG meet at a secret location (aka the home of a very generous member who shall remain nameless) to dye things. We each bring our own portable stoves, pots, pre-soaked fibers, vinegar, ziplock bags, thermometers, 35" chopsticks, buckets to rinse fibers in, and rubber gloves, and the guild will provide dye and cling wrap. This year, the Guild President Lorinda also invested in some disposable aprons (yay!). Just a note, those work way better than my original idea of a hospital gown. Hospital gown would've worked if it wasn't so damn hot.

This year, I had planned to dye 1 lbs 3 oz of superwash merino pencil that I won at the LA County Fair last year. (Apparently I didn't post about it, but I won grand champion as a newbie spinner with only 4 months experience! It was totally beginner's luck and I do not expect to repeat that grand performance again, but it was awesome while it lasted.) I also planned to dye some BFL and Merino/Tencel that I bought at the Dye Festival last year from The Dizzy Ewe.

I knew I wanted the SW merino pencil in grey, and Lorinda helped me pick out some colors for my first attempt at hand painting fiber (because she's awesome like that.) 

I had raspberry, purple, grass green, macchiato, and hunter green. 

Here's the process:

First, I mixed the dye up (duh). Then, I poured vinegar directly into the dye I mixed to dilute the dye. Be careful you don't dilute it too far to cause the color to be too light for your taste. 

Then, I laid out a disposable table cloth, because it would be a horrible thing to stain someone's backyard with my dye. Then, I laid out cling wraps on the table cloths, then my fiber, with as much water squeezed out as possible. 

I then used painter brushes (either foam or actual brushes, I had both) to paint the fiber with my dye/vinegar solution. 

After I was done, I laid another layer of cling wrap on top of the fiber, rolled it up, careful not to let different sections of fiber touch, and dropped the fiber in a ziplock bag. Make sure the ziplock bag is not too big. IMO, gallon size or smaller is best. 

Then, I poured enough water into a stainless steel pot to cover the steam tray in the pot (that Andrea loaned me because I forgot to bring my own, thank you Andrea), put the ziplock bags containing the dyed fiber on top, steam for about 40 minutes, let the bags cool on their own, rinse out the fiber, dry, and voila!

As for how long does it take for the bags to cool? I don't know. I was too tired to deal with rinsing out the fiber so I did it 24 hours later...)

Results:

I first tested the colors on some Corriedale I brought as color testers. Those ended up like this:

It appears colors are more vibrant on Corriedale and BFL than they are on Merino/Tencel. 

Then, I did the Merino/Tencel because I knew I wanted it in raspberry and macchiato:

Maybe my eyes are failing me but I just don't think the colors on the Merino Tencel turned out as well as the colors in Corriedale.

I did the BFL last because I had no idea what I was doing. This was a mini experiment of mine, to do one planned, with stripes of certain pre-determined length, and one randomly however it pleased me, and see how they turn out, both after they are dried and after I spin them up. The BFL was chosen to be the random one. I had 5 colors that complimented each other (in my opinion anyway), and I just winged it. I started with raspberry because that's my favorite color, then I dumped some green, some light green, dabbed some purple randomly, dabbed some macchiato randomly, and essentially just did whatever pleased me.

When I was done, my first thought was, "I screwed up. :'(", but all is well, since dye day will happen again next year, and there's always more fiber to try out. However, when the fiber dried, I was amazed! The colors turned out so well I wish I did a 4 oz or 8 oz batch instead! We will see how this spins up. I will post photos.

The 1 lbs 3 oz of SW merino did not turn out well. I should have stirred the pot as I dyed since I knew superwash fiber tend to take up fiber dramatically wherever the fiber touches the dye. I dropped the fiber and dye in the post, then poured in vinegar. I should have dropped the dye in first, then fiber, mix it up some, then vinegar. In any case, it did not turn out grey. It turned out black and white. There are the really black parts, and the really white parts, but there's really no grey in there. I wanted to redye it, but Mr. Tako liked the result, so I'm going to spin it up first to see what it spins up like. If I don't like that, then I'll dye it vermilion or some shockingly dramatic color.

First Drum Carding Experience

In April, I borrowed a Fancy Kitty Fine Drum Carder from GLASG to card up some mohair. I admit what I did was a bit wasteful, but here goes:

I started with 4 oz of drum carded mohair I got from GLASG's Secretary, Loan Nguyen.

This is beautiful on its own, and Loan already spent the effort to drum card it, which is why I think what I did was wasteful. I had ideas other than just spinning it up for this pretty fiber.

I also had 1 oz of undyed 50/50 cashmere and silk just sitting around, and I wanted to blend the cashmere and silk in with the mohair. I first dyed the cashmere/silk into a pretty lavender color, then carded all of them together about 3 times. It was a process. The carder could only handle 1.25 oz of fiber at a time, so it took 4 batts to card up everything. I then layered the batts and fed them through the carder again. I did this twice. The result was kind of unexpected.

I expected a mild purple-ish blue color, since the mohair to cashmere to silk ratio was 8:1:1, but instead, the cashmere/silk color dominated the batt, so you could hardly tell there were 4 oz of light blue mohair in the batts. The batts ended up like this:

Here's an over exposed version:

Sorry, I need better lighting.

In any case, you can see there's hardly any blue left in the batt.

For now, my plan is to attempt brushed mohair yarn. The plan is to spin all the carded mohair/cashmere/silk into lace weight singles, WPI 60 or so, and spin up 5 oz of tencel into WPI 60 singles as well, then ply. After that, I will try brushing out the mohair with a slicker brush. If that doesn't work, maybe I will knit it up first then brush out the mohair.

Once I spin this up, I will post results.

Overall, drum carding was surprisingly simple and I didn't feel there's a need for extensive classes on how to drum card. I feel it's something you can just "wing it". All I had to remember was to not put too much fiber through the carder at one time. The batts I made, because they were carded over and over again very carefully, they are smooth like babies' butts. I'm rather excited about the idea of spinning them up.

Follow up to GLASG Dyefest and my wool combing experience.

I said I was going to do a follow up but obviously I was super lazy...

In any case, here goes:

The dye fest yarn I tried to make into projects.

The red one turned out great:

I made it into a beaning. Someone offered to buy the beaning off my head! Of course I didn't sell it. It's the first slouchy beanie I made with my first hand-spun, hand-dyed yarn. How could I possibly sell it? It looked like this:

The blue yarn was dyed this beautiful purple-blue, but unfortunately it was my very first skein of yarn, and it was lumpy beyond belief. The cowl I tried to make with it looked so extremely ugly I destroyed evidence of both the yarn and the project. I will pretend it never existed. I still have pictures of the yarn... so here goes:

The Dorset I hand-combed, hand-spun, and hand-dyed, I haven't used. I unsuccessfully tried to dye it two different shades of brown, and it didn't turn out well, so I overdyed it with Wilton black. 

I didn't like this color break initially, but it's growing on me. I want to see what it'll knit up like, but I haven't gotten to it yet. 

GLASG Dyefest Recap

Last Saturday was GLASG's Dyefest. I had a great time!

My friend wanted to join GLASG earlier and come with me, but we did not find out that this is the one day where a person can't just show up to a meeting and join on the spot, so my poor friend missed this year's Dyefest. We will probably do our best to make next year's Dyefest. 

Everyone's lovely products. The two on the left are mine.

First Wool Combing Experience

I went to a GLASG meeting today, borrowed a set of wool combs, and was lucky enough to be gifted some Dorset fleece as well. 

I set it up soon after dinner, and it was a fun experience!