It's all in the product!

I had this Border Leicester fleece that needed to be cleaned. I usually use Unicorn Fiber Wash...

I was running low and decided to buy more, but this time I purchased the Power Scour. I cannot say enough great things about this product! It will clean anything, and I mean anything! 

I added a few drops to this piece, lathered it lightly, rinsed and this was my results!

This was not the dirtiest fleece I have ever had but it was dirty...

But after a bath in the Unicorn Power Scour and  few rinses, it's beautifully clean. It really is all in the product. I don't find dish soap nearly as effective as the Unicorn wash line. This product is worth its weight in gold!!!

Prepping wool for spinning

Not all fibers are prepped the same way. Often they can be combed, spun from the locks or if you are lucky to have it mill prepped, it will make the process faster. Above is some of the hand dyed Lincoln wool I did earlier.

What I found with the Lincoln wool is that you really need to pull it apart into almost a frizzy frenzy. I also combed it with a hand carder. There is a lot of lanolin in this wool so it needs to be prepped properly. 

When it is prepped properly it spins up amazingly! 

This is a lovely, strong yarn but the most wonderful part is the colors and the softness. 

The young and the old bee

I was watching the honeybees yesterday on the Autumn  Joy Sedum. I took this picture because it shows two phases of the foragers. The bee on the bottom is a younger forager while the bee on the top is older. You ask how could I know this? As a honeybee ages, she looses the hairs on the top of her thorax plate. This is often an indicator of age of a honeybee. A honeybee becomes a forager at about the half way point of her life. Our honeybees are extremely busy collecting all they can.

Results to "Dye" for!

Sadly the pictures don't come close to the results. Cameras just can't pick up the quality of the color and the variant blends.In the picture above, I wanted to blend the colors of the sea. As summer is coming to a close, my best time spent this summer was at the beach so I wanted to create a fleece in those colors, and I did! 

This portion of the 9 pound Lincoln fleece was dyed in shades of purples and lavenders. The blends and the locks came out amazing!

This fleece was black with a heavy dose of reds which ultimately resulted in a deep and variegated burgundy color. When I saw the results it remind me of a dress a saloon singer would have worn in the good old wild wild west.

In this fleece I wanted a lot of pastels. The light blue bled with some other colors and you can see the only small amount that came through in the middle right of the picture. The softness of this fleece is so nice and the variance of the colors down the locks is beautiful too!

This final fleece was my favorite! The colors remind me of a carpet bag set in Victorian times! I used at least 7 different dyes in this one and they blended beautifully! Once again soft and easy to get the just right colors!
Now to begin some spinning as the weather is a cool early fall here in Connecticut.

That Dye Pot time of year

The weather here in Connecticut has been cool and beautiful. Perfect dyeing weather for boiling dye pots. With the 9 pounds of Lincoln wool I cleaned it was time to begin dyeing and getting ready for the fall shows.

I have pretty much switched over to Pro Chem dyes. Their colors are warm and dye perfect. The color holds so nice and their selections of colors are limitless. 

I was going good for the colors of the sea and I was quite pleased. Once the fleeces are dried I will post the finished results.

Most of the batches I dyed fractioning the dyes which gives not only different colors but as its absorbed different shades as well

While still drying, this fleece has different variants of purples and lavenders.

While boiling it tends to look like a hot mess, but the end results are amazing.

This fleece while still drying reminded me of a Victorian woman's dress. Using black and burgundy shades, I look at it and am taken back to a simpler time.

Once again, fractioning the dyes, results with 6 different dyes

So fleeces are still drying, the variant of color came out quite nice. Once dry I will post the results of the fleeces.