Bunny angora, silk and merino skein

This skein was a gift for the best knitter I know who had a baby some months ago. I carded the fibres together and then painted the spun yarn with dye.

Lacey felt curtain

I've made another curtain for the bathroom. It's a great way to use up of lengths of handspun. Singles are especially good for keeping the piece together. Our shower curtain is patterned with large green and turquoise leaves so I added some leaf shapes to the felt.







 

Shades of grey

I've spun enough dark charcoal grey merino with white silk and white merino and silk to make a sweater but to me the white and charcoal were too eyepopping for the design I had chosen. So I decided to dye the white in shades of grey. After Tracy's course I had enough confidence to try repeat dyeing. My test skein (the top one) used from left no dye, black dye at 0.2%, 0.02%, no dye, black at 1%, 0.1%. The 1% was too dark - I felt it didn't have enough contrast with my other yarn, the dark charcoal.

I opted for no dye, 0.02%, 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.1%, 0.02%, and no dye. I put markers on the bench to show the length to paint each dye. With a large sheet of plastic over the markers, I lay out my cling film and started applying the dye. I"m thrilled with the result. It's what I wanted and each dyed skein is similar to the others. There is no felting and no runover of dye.

I did some other dyeing too and kept all the water I'd used to rinse the brush and the containers. At the finish I tipped this rinse water into the dyepot, added some fleece. This gave me a lovely soft mauve. Previously I would have thrown the rinse water onto the grass. Thank you Tracy.

Here's the two yarns knitted together. You can see the subtle gradations of the dyed yarn.

Tracy White dyes

After our Open Day some keen dyers took part in a 2 day workshop run by Tracy White called Double Dyeing. Here are some photos.

 My samples of alpaca, silk, fleece, yarn and sliver after the first day. Tracy organised the workshop so we all contributed to a colour card which had dyed samples of  each combination of colour the group had used. What I appreciated the most was Tracey's attitude to dyeing. She made sure she used every part of the dye rather than add toxic dye into the ecosystem.

 Samples after day 2.

Gael concentrating on dyeing.

"The Way We Were" display

Our theme for Open Day was "The Way We Were 1920s -80s". Here are a few of the treasures club members brought along for a display of handicrafts from those decades and in some cases even earlier.

CF Open Day Exhibition

Here's a sample of the work in our Thames Club Exhibition.

 Anne's delightful dolls                                           Donna's alpaca rug, hand spun, dyed and crocheted

Left, Pauline's felted table centre.



Right, Nola's rug with Donna's knitted and felted teddy bear

 Left Lynne's delicately
needlefelted faintails.



Right, Sheryll's silk and merino child's dress make in one piee

Creative Fibres Open Day - Fibre Fanatics

On right, our president
Sheryll
wearing a stunning jumpsuit.

On left, would you trust this born again hippie to spin and knit for your baby?
Will and Kate did!

 Gael adding to the stash from Kane Carding's felting sliver.

 Joanne with The Little Wool Companies fibres.