Indigo Dyed Wool Hand Spun By Me

Now I won't tell you this dye came from my garden as my madder dye plants were. But I did try. I planted 18 indigo plants. And one did sprout up and grew to be a pretty big plant. But the process of creating a dye from the plant was, um, baffling. Strangely, by accident, dripping some of the pre-reduced liquid on my yarn put a pale blue splotch on one of the skeins. That was strange. I did not see this until I was ready to place the yarn into the indigo vat. Well, it was a mini vat. And smelled pretty foul. But all that busy work and no color. Boo. Here is where I bought the Indigo seeds

So I was like, what the heck, let me go with some pre-reduced indigo. At left is what it looks like. Very awesome. Here is the link to where I bought it.
 Brush Creek Wool Works
I bought 2 bags of 1 oz each at 4.50 a bag. I used 1/2 a bag and got all the color you see in the yarn above. So much easier. I liked there was no weeding the around the plant. Sorry no pictures. That computer's guts vanished. It was a Vista. You can see why it died. But I love old things. I cannot help it. Hell, I still have my Windows Millennium upstairs in the back room which is actually an attic-ish type spooky place. There also hides two old typewriters. And you may have seen my Walking Wheel elsewhere on this blog. Enough said.

These two skeins on the right I tried to get a heathered feel by tying the skeins with two knots. Though the colors are lighter here than in real life, I hope you can see how they turned out. I love heathered yarns. 

Oh man, there is a teen aged human wondering around. Not a bad thing mind you just that he is awake. Time to get gone. 

For the First Time, Introducing... My Hand Spun

It is a bit on the rustic side. But I don't mind. I'm learning so it's okay. Which, by the way, what I'm trying to learn is the long draw. It's starting to come together. Which, by the way, means the yarn I'm trying to learn to spin is not falling apart as I spin. This is probably why my yarn is a bit on the rustic side. Not trying to make excuses. But, well, it's kinda hard. I love doing it. What's wrong with me? Not really sure. Kinda hard to explain.

                   Ignore the date found at lower right hand corner.

This is a wonderful pattern created by Yolanda Teague. You can find it on Ravelry and is called the Cloud Bolero. I was lucky. Got the pattern back in 2010 when it was still free at Yarn Forward Mag.

Okay, wrong. Cloud Bolero is no longer available but a new version is. There is a link from the Cloud page to the new pattern. She also has some notes on the differences between them at her blog. That link also on Cloud page. Yolanda Teague on Ravelry

And so the above was made with one of my hand spun yarns. It was dyed with orange osage wood chips in an iron pot over an outside fire. Another story for another day. I did not care for the color so I over dyed with tobacco. The roll your own type. For real.

                     Here is the tobacco simmering. Horrible smelling stuff.

                                                 And here is the dye.

      This is how it came out. Added a bit of rustiness to the color which I liked better.

And here is a sweet little something for a sweet little person. This was spun up from wool shorn from a local Jacob sheep. The cocoon was so very soft. Baby's need soft. The mommy was very pleased.

And so this is what my PVC/bike spinning wheel has helped me to create. There was more but has been knitted or crocheted into something and given away.

A quick note on the two pattern links I put up on how to make a PVC spinning wheel. It seems one of the links is dead. That would be the free pattern. I will say the other pattern is worth every penny of the $7.00 price. And it will help out a fellow crafty person. Hey, run don't walk and get you one.

                 There were some needed changes. Will post on that soon.

Have a good day.