Fiber Is Good For You

The fibery sorts of hijinks continue unabated here at Sheep Central.  I continue to shop from the spare bedroom where eighty billion pounds of yarn, fleece and roving have been sitting for quite a while and I am still resisting the urge to buy new stuff just because it's there and I don't have it yet.  Because, let's face it:  routine vehicle maintenance, even if it costs more than you'd hoped, still needs to take precedence.  It's also kind of good for clearing space.

Very responsible.  Probably also a very short-lived sort of thing...but still very responsible.

More of the merino went into the NASCAR crock pot this morning, this time accompanied by sapphire blue dye.  In the interest of sharing new knowledge and eventually being thought of as some sort of fiber guru, I beg you to please make sure of the directions in which your faucets turn before adding more hot water to the dye stock.  In case anyone was wondering what might occur if you happen to turn it the wrong way and send a full-force jet of water into the little paper cup you are using and are considering some sort of experiment, let me save you the trouble.  Dye will splash.  It will splash with great enthusiasm.  It will cascade into the air as if it had always aspired to one day become a geyser.  

You will have to wash the cat's water bowl.

Eventually, though, you will be able to get it washed off your hands.  But you won't have fingerprints anymore...

Yesterday's dyeing experiments are almost dry and I include the picture only to show just how wonky colors can get in photographs.  There is no blue in this fiber.  None whatsoever.  It's a sort of greyish shade of brown.  In fact, brown was the only color in the pot.  But, sometimes a girl has to shove way more fiber in the pot than is good for her.

And she gets yellow...

It looks really cool, though.  I'm keeping it.  Half the fun of doing your own dyeing is seeing what comes out of the pot at day's end.  The other half of the fun is the assurance that any of your professional dyer-type friends will sleep easier knowing that their careers are safe.  There will never be a Sheepish Annie colorway on the market.  Even if there was one, there would only be one, because I couldn't do the same thing twice if you brandished a niddy noddy near my noggin.

Spinning the ridiculously skinny strings of the Louet fiber also took up a bit of the day.  I have moved my spinning chair back by a few inches and am adopting a "devil-may-care" sort of posture while I treadle.  I look all casual and cool.  This keeps the neck from tensing up somewhat and I've been able to spin for longer periods.  

Truth be told, though, I didn't really spin for all that long.  I knit for most of the day...at least for the part that wasn't spent scrubbing blue dye from my nails and counter tops.  Because if there was anyone out there who thought for a minute that I'd merely wound up the pretty, pretty yarn yesterday just for the sake of looking at it, I thank you for your high opinion of me.  It's nice to know that there are folks who think I really do have the strength of character to finish the current project before starting another, no matter how tempting the yarn.

You are so sweet.

The rest of you, the ones who figured I'd just do what I felt like doing and to heck with the consequences...

Good call.  

SA