Friday, October 07, 2005

Spinning, week three

Last night was the third week of the five-week "Sheep to Scarf" class. I've made progress in getting some of my fiber spun into something vaguely resembling yarn. I still have a bit more that can be flicked and spun, so it is still on the spindle.



Last night's topic was dying. Kay is big into dying with natural substances - flowers and whatnot. The fiber at the the bottom of the picture was dyed with yellow onion skins. I am afraid it might have felted a bit. I'll have to wait until it has dried to see how much of it I can salvage. I love the color, though.

We had three dye pots going. There was also marigold, which gives a brighter yellow, and walnut, which yields anything from latte beige to rich brown.

I also got to try out the spinning wheel. I could probably learn to like that. Spinning with the drop spindle seems like it requires three hands - one to spin the spindle, and two to draft the fiber. (*Draft: pull the fiber into right-sized bits and feed it into the twisty part of the yarn.) With the wheel, your foot is the third hand, keeping the spinning going.

Have I ever explained why spokeskitty Katie is always around when there are photo shoots in the kitchen?



She has some bad habits, and wanting fresh water directly from the faucet is one of them.

1 comment:

Aser said...

How many yellow onion skins? Just the browny-colored ones, or any? That's a gorgeous color; I've always wanted to try dyeing something with onion.