Because the Tour de Fleece is nearly upon us! For spinners, it’s one of the biggest events of the year — a chance to really challenge ourselves and encourage each other. Oh, and watch a bit of cycling as well. In honour of the Tour de Fleece, I’ve spent this week dyeing fiber.
If you don’t know anything about the Tour, don’t worry — Monday’s post will explain all and give some links to help you get started. In the meantime, what sort of spinning would be a challenge for you? To spin more? Or to spin finer? Maybe to try a new fiber, or a new technique? And please cast your eyes over this week’s fiber porn, all going in the shop today and over the weekend…
Bombyx Silk in Freshly Cut GrassTussah SilkMerino combed top in Garden In SpringBFL combed top in Garden In SpringTussah Silk in Freshly Cut GrassBombyx Silk in PondBFL combed top in UnderfootMerino combed top in Freshly Cut Grass
I dyed some fiber in the Sailor’s Warning colourway, but I wasn’t happy with the way it came out. Don’t get me wrong — it was beautiful — but it just wasn’t quite Sailor’s Warning to me. It wasn’t different enough to be its own new colourway, but I wasn’t happy putting it in the shop when it didn’t look exactly as I’d intended.
…But how can I waste 4oz of beautiful, soft-as-clouds merino fiber?!? I can’t! And besides, I know that, even though it wasn’t exactly perfect as fiber, the colours will blend and soften when it’s spun and it will look gorgeous.
So I am spinning it up, and it will go in the shop as hand-spun. Keep your eyes open for it!
A customer recently wrote to ask me how much handspun yarn she could expect get from a braid of my hand-dyed fiber and, to be honest, I was at a bit of a loss. How much yarn you’ll get varies from spinning style to spinning style …and from spinner to spinner. The thicker the yarn, the less yardage; the thinner it’s spun, the more yardage. Beyond that, it’s a very hard question to answer.
Hand-dyed BFL Combed Top, in Garden in Spring
And especially for me, because I hardly ever calculate the yardage on my handspun. I have no idea why — I just never do!
So I turned to my friend Natalie who is a more experienced (and excellent) handspinner and posed my customer’s question to her. She replied, “It’s usually 20 – 30 % less yardage than you’d get from the same amount (grams/ounces) of commercially spun yarn of the same weight (worsted, dk, fingering etc) because handspun tends to be denser. From 4oz, I’d expect 300-400 yards fingering; probably 200-300 of a dk/worsted range.”A much more technical and useful answer than mine!
The yarn spun by my friend from the Garden In Spring BFL
And then she added, “Hard to judge though… It’s all very variable.” Which made me feel a bit better!
I posted the prizes off to the winners of the Giveaway today and, before I slipped them into the envelopes, I just couldn’t resist taking a few pictures just so I could share them with you.
The two runners-up got 2oz each of this BFL fiber.
When I dyed this, I was going for a fiber version of Plumberry, the colourway of the newest yarn in the shop*. But, although I mixed the dyes up correctly, I did the dyeing in slightly the wrong order and the blue took on an amazing silver-grey tint. It doesn’t look like Plumberry to me but, let me tell you, it is really quite stunning! I might dye more like this, but I am undecided as to whether it deserves its own name, because dyeing is a dynamic process — even if I gave it a new name and tried to dye it this way again, it might come out of the dyepot with more blue and looking more like the original Plumberry… Hmmmm… Maybe the nature of Plumberry will be that it’s sometimes got this grey, sometimes got more blue. We’ll have to see.
Anyway, I do hope the runners up enjoy the lovely colours of their new fiber!
*You never saw the Plumberry yarn? That’s because both skeins sold in two hours! But I’ve dyed some more that will go in later this week.
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And for our winner, I’ve chosen a skein of Garden In Spring sock yarn. This is the first colourway I ever dyed for the shop and it is absolutely one of my favourites. It’s so bright and cheerful and just so darned happy, and I think that’s the very essence of how winning a giveaway ought to make a person feel!
Congratulations again to the winners, and I hope you enjoy using your yarn and fiber! And to everyone else, there will be more giveaways in the future, so keep your eyes open for those.
It’s the last few days to enter the giveaway to win a skein of SpaceCadet Creation’s hand-dyed Sock Yarn or two 2oz braids of hand-dyed fiber! The giveaway will come to a close at the end of Monday (11.59pm on May 31st to be exact) so, if you’re not entered, make sure you get entered before the end of the holiday weekend!
All you have to do is put your email address in the subscription box over there on the right, just above the SpaceCadet’s head. And, once you’ve done that, there are six ways to earn extra entries — for all the details, click here.
But remember, those extra entries will count only if you’ve subscribed to the blog using the subscription box right over there at the top of the right-hand column. While I am sincerely grateful for all my followers, I can’t see the people who subscribe through other feed aggrigators (such as Google Reader, Bloglines, etc) and so I’m afraid those subscriptions can’t count as entries. If you prefer to follow me through another feed aggrigator, please go ahead and do that, but also subscribe through the blog just for a few days, so your entry can be counted for the giveaway.
Thank you to everyone who has subscribed and entered so far. It’s been so exciting to “meet” all of you! Now go out there and tweet, post, follow, and friend your way to extra entries. And GOOD LUCK!
