Monthly Archives: December 2015

Starting 2016 Early!

Posted on by January 1, 2016

Last night I dyed some of the Alpaca worsted weight (200 yards), more to test the various techniques rather than any particular artistic expression.  Because this is a one-time collection of yarns from this source, I have no long-range plans for this base, but it’s still nice to know how it will behave for the next couple dozen skeins that are available.

I am impressed at how well this yarn takes up colors — well saturated where it was supposed to be, and virtually NO run-off or bleeding in the wash and rinse waters, so that’s always a good sign.

I already know which ones I would want to knit a hat with, but since I know how they were done I can just do another for myself, so you can select from all of these.  🙂

#6 and #11 were dyed from the exact same squeeze bottles of dyes, with the exact same dyes, but just using different techniques.

They are all worsted weight alpaca, at approximately 200+ yards.  They will go to the Blog Reader Specials page tomorrow for $26.00 , but you may claim today any that you want for $22.00 each — just email me with your numbered selection(s).   These will be ready to ship on Saturday.

Still available:   1, 6, 7, 9

Already Claimed:  2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11

 

BRS16-Rack1

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Alpaca whole lot of dye into it

Posted on by December 30, 2015

Okay this is a Teaser for the Alpaca worsted weight to be shown on the preview rack tomorrow.

The first and third were dyed from the same little squeeze bottles of dye.  The second is a yellow base onto which I speckled half with one of my reds and half with a blue.  The fourth is a mix of leftover yellows, golds, browns all sort of smooshed together a bit.  🙂

These will cool overnight and then get a wash and rinse in the morning.  I expect to have a preview picture, with BRS16 numbers posted by mid-morning for you.

AlpacaWorstedTeaser1

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Pick a bale of … what?

Posted on by December 29, 2015

Okay, so y’member I was expecting a bale of alpaca worsted weight yarn?   Well, it finally arrived last night, all firmly bundled, shown next to my Crocs for size comparison.  alpacaWorsted-incoming1

And the first thing a dyer needs to do when receiving new yarn from a different source is to figure out how to undo the bundle (OMG how did they pack it so tightly!!??), and then figure out how each hank was put up.

It is in large (250g) individual hanks, which are too large for me to dye in my normal way, so I have to break them down into 4oz hanks.  The first one let me know that a 4oz hank is about 200 yards.  It behaved most admirably in becoming 2 decent sized hanks.

The second one that I put on the swift to put into smaller hanks, however, thoroughly misbehaved.  Apparently not all yarn manufacturers work the same way.  I thought I had a clear tail from which to wind but within a few turns it was obvious I was mistaken.  The end strand was pulling from between other strands, over and under and through and around.   So I am ever-so-carefully making a ball manually and trying to sort it out.   OMG what a mess — a tedious, time-consuming, mind-numbing, curse-inducing MESS!!

alpacaWorsted-incoming2

I have no idea how those long strands managed to droop and snag around the shaft below, but I’m not about to start cutting or pulling anything.   I’ll just keep manually winding that ball,

Oh, and lookie…. I just went to start back at it, and discovered the last half of the hank is winding off in the opposite direction.  What the heck???  This one hank may well be an all-day project for me.

Anyway, I expect to have a rack of Alpaca worsted weight yarns to show on New Years Day — 100% Alpaca, 200 yards, $26.00.

The good news is that once all these are sorted and made, I will have a fair good amount of alpaca worsted weight skeins at 200 yards each.  And because they came from a different source I will be able to finally take care of a long-long-overdue bill that neeeeeeds to be taken care of.  So, YAYyyyy  for end-of-year finishing so I can start the new year clean.

 

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