Well Here I Am...

 I bet you thought I wasn't coming back... WRONG!

Summer was a dizzy busy-ness of surgeries and such. 

Hubby needed eye surgery, and I needed to get a tooth pulled. With recovery time and the heat of the summer, well I just don't know where time went.

But all is well and I'm back.

I've gotten more involved with fiber, mostly wool which is very sustainable being that it comes from sheep and will biodegrade and have been making sure that it has been dyed naturally.

A wonderful friend recently moved to Iceland who happens to be a fiber artist, wasn't able to take all his fiber with him. He surprised me with a box filled with unspun fibers, and wool yarn and raw wool from the Rambouillet Sheep, I think, (he wasn't even too certain.) Anyway, it needed to be combed and spun and dyed. This wool was handed down to him and now to me. I'm still learning how card (brush) and haven't bought cards (brushes) to work with. It was something I don't know if I really want to get into, but here it is, I need a brush! I had read that the slicker dog brushes are similar to cards, not the best but it's a start.

It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't all the smooth, having little nubs here and there. I spun it anyway thinking it would make great art yarn.

 

Cat inspector with raw wool

Spun art wool. I'm practicing how to spin art wool on a drop spindle. 

I went ahead and dyed this in my stash of onion skins. As well as what my friend had spun.

I saved the dye in jars and they are labeled and in my fridge. Which reminds me I need to use them soon.

I had saved dye made from black tea and mixed the onion dye and tea dye together.

I got a lighter shade of that dark pumpkin color, it isn't as bright, but definitely lighter shade of the pumpkin color, I was hoping for more of a brown since the dye bath looked like a burnt sienna brown.

Green is hard to make naturally but have read that copper could turn some dyes into a green, makes sense if you ever had copper jewelry turn your skin green. I have a little piece of copper to use in the next onion dye bath...

Till next time,

Hugs,

Dolores