A Day to Dye

We use many different techniques for dyeing. It mostly depends on what we are doing the dyeing for. I took some pictures one day while I was dyeing some locks. 

First I picked the colors. For this day I was using primary colors. Red, Yellow, Blue.

Soaking the locks in hot vinegar water. I let them soak for about 20mins. 

I sprinkled the dye onto the locks and then added more locks. I don't normally add more locks, but I had put to much water in and needed the locks to sop it up. 

Locks in the process of dyeing. 

Before the blue and red took over the yellow. 

rinsing.

a wider shot of the rinsing. 

For dyeing we use acid dyes. Acid dyes need an acid to strike ( take up). We use vinegar as our acid. Depending on the technique that we are using I will either soak in vinegar water or wait until we've added the dye to add the vinegar. All of our wool sits in the dye bath until the water has cooled and then goes through rinse cycles until the dye doesn't bleed.

I hope to be posting about some of the other ways that we dye.

Wool Mill Road Trip

This past week we decided to take a trip to Zeilinger's Wool Mill. We have been sending our wool to them for nearly 10yrs to be processed into rovings. This is the first time that we have actually taken wool up there ourselves. We generally send it with another family or drop it off at wool shows.

We left on Wednesday night and got there late. Went into Zeilinger's first thing in the morning. They did our wool intake. That wasn't much different than any other time dropping off at a show. After we were done with the wool intake.

After our intake we took a quick tour of the facilities. We got to see the combing machine, roving machine, and the picker. That was just in one building. When we went to the next building we saw where they wash the wool. Then we got to see the machine that makes batts. They were working on an alpaca batt when we came in. In the upstairs of that building is where they make the socks.

All in all we had a good time. I can't wait to see the rovings and batts that we get back. It is a never ending circle though and we have started washing and picking for the next batch to go out.

The batting machine

A side picture of it

A top view

fleeces drying

Fleece, Fleece Everywhere

As a side effect of being a spinner and a shepherd, I have a lot of fleeces. By a lot, I mean A LOT. I can not begin to describe the number and quality of fleeces I go through each year. Lets face it some of the fleeces I see are nothing but junk. I simply open the bag wrinkle my nose and ship them out. Maybe I am a little to particular, but after 11 years of spinning and fiber handling and putting my hands into literally thousands of fleeces, I think I have every right to be. It takes a special fleece to make me jump up and down.

This was once again brought to my attention today as we were cleaning the barn for the straw to come in. There is a method to the madness in my sorting system. The fleeces that are first up to wash or that are particularly nice go to the house. The next best fleeces ( the ones that I don't want washed RIGHT now or that I haven't skirted yet) go out to the camper. Yes you read that right I use a camping trailer to house fleeces. The last batch are the" these are in my way and I don't know what I want to do with them yet" group. Yes this is a group and it's the largest group by far. I once again encountered this group today while cleaning the barn. This group unfortunately seems to get moved around quite a bit and eventually finds their true home. This is usually when I'm in a hurry and don't have much time to think about it. Once again my procrastinators nature at work.

Wool Shows

Well May was a very busy month. Out of 4 weekends we had wool shows three of them. Well I guess technically two, but we always go to Maryland Sheep and Wool.

I have learned somethings by attending that many shows that quickly. First off some work and some don't. One show that I vended at was my first year and most likely my last year there. It was a very nice show, run by very nice people. The problem comes that I also have to realistically look at the bottom line. I didn't make money at it. Not even a little bit.

Secondly I tend to over clutter some of my space. I like to offer people a variety that is accessible. Basically I don't braid or bag all of our rovings because I want to be able to offer the occasional felter that 1 or 2 oz batch that they need. I think this tactic helps my business and perhaps at times hurts it. I have found the use of signs to be a necessity. People seem to be able to understand a properly worded sign and they like not having to ask.

Third, I do need to bag up smaller quantities for customers. At Great Lakes wool show I had some individual baggies of dyed locks done up and people seemed to love them. I had thought that leaving them loose and giving the customer the option to pick their colors would work, but a lot of them seem to be okay with the random baggies I throw together.

Overall we had fun and can't wait until the next one.