My Blog List

Monday 3 May 2010

Spinning A Yarn and Then Dyeing

This is the colourful result of dyeing some mixed merino and Tunisian hill-sheep yarns which I plied together.The merino was Australian-super-fine and the Tunisian wool was almost like mohair. So I plied a strand of each together to produce a yarn which would knit at close to 8Pply/double. Then I went into the Dye Box. I mixed blue and purple.

It starts as a hank of wool like this. This particular one is from Tunisia. Their sheep roam the steeper slopes and look a bit like a cross between sheep and goats, and, indeed this wool looks like a cross between wool and mohair. I bought a few hanks last year at the souk while I was there.
I wound some superfine merino together with the tunisian wool using my winder and niddy-noddy.
They were then dyed and dried in skeins in the soft wind and occasional sun.
It was planned that today would be a trip to the seaside in the morning and a guided walk around Barnard Castle in the afternoon. BUT the weather was ghastly for being out for a long time and both were decided against. So, DJ did some painting and I did the dyeing.
We had a wonderful meal of "Chicken Fajitas" which I have never had before and was orchestrated by DJ, because he had had them before.
It was too late to take photos. They were eaten too soon.
Cheers Gillian

2 comments:

Sue said...

Your wool looks beautiful Gillian, great colors. We too have had a ghastly day of rain and thunder and very very windy! I have to tell you that Kittykat is living quite happily still with Helen and she is doing very well!

stitching and opinions said...

Dyeing always makes me so nervous[lazy?] yours has come out so well. I shall have to get on with it.
Wet and windy here too.