So you remember the squeeing? Well, the squeeing became dyeing, and here are the results.

First I let Self have control of the dyepot to play with his cool greens and blues.

He started with one of my few repeated colorways, War for the Oaks, but in a new fiber for that mix, BFL. Mmm BFL. The effect is very different in BFL, because the colors don’t spread the same within the fiber. Going to try it in still another fiber sometime this week. Named after the book by Emma Bull

Then, he did this one, another repeat, but not one you really got to see before, Deep Forest Shadows, a slightly lighter more dappled version. Also in BFL. Deep in the forest, the shadows play, flitting and dancing. Which shadows are simply the moving of leaves, and which are something darker… stranger?

Then Self and I came up with a slightly new dyeing method. First he had a go with it and got a new Into the Green. More BFL. On the edge of the forest, light plays through the leaves as a soft breeze blows, throwing dappled green shadows on the world. Come, join me and explore its cool mysteries.

And a darker, richer one, dubbed Phouka, after the male lead in War for the Oaks. A dark, earthy fae, rich with depth, color, and masculine energy, at once wise and powerful and naive and vulnerable. 50% Alpaca / 30% Merino/ 20% Silk

Finally Self managed this one, The Storm Clears. Cool, whispy, clouds clearing to reveal a startling blue sky behind. More of the Alpaca/Merino/Silk blend

Before Self completely relinquished the pot, we collaborated on one of my favorites of the bunch. Corundum. Deep oxblood and blue/purple. A mix of the stone which becomes ruby and sapphire. Deep and saturated and rich. Also, already gone. Going to dye some more of this one though. More of the Alpaca/Merino/Silk. Mmm shiny.

Apparently, once I got control of the dyepot, I was in an odd mood. Because I kept dyeing things out of my norm.

First, fruit salad. Mmm summery. Peach and orange and grapes and plum. Mmm. Alpaca/Merino/Silk

Then, more fruit. Crushed Berries, a color I’ve done and spun into yarn before. BFL

Then, somehow, I dyed this. A repeat, but not one I planned. Munstead, a softer flowered lavender. A pretty flower. Alpaca/Merino/Silk

And finally… Robins and Rabbits. Yeah… I don’t know where it came from. It snuck up and assaulted my dyepot. When spring has sprung… BFL

These will all be up in the store (except Corundum) shortly.

More dyeing to be done this week. Halfway through the latest spinning commission. Then I have to finally sit down and spin for the swap I’m falling behind on. Then, maybe I’ll spin something for myself… ::laughs:: who’m I kidding?

~The Gnome

It’s all snowy and blizzarding here. As it did much of Sunday (while I was driving to and from my Parents’ house). Yay for good truck with good tires.

I finally got to sit down at my baby this weekend. Finished off a skein of Queen Mab. Oy, every time I do one of these I remember again what a huge pain beading is. But it is pretty.

190yds, dk weight with a bit of thick/thin character.
100% Alpaca plied with icey beads befitting the Queen’s ice cold fae heart.

With that done, I got to get to work on the Pink Spinel commissioned yarn, which is now 1.3 bobbins in, two thirds of a bobbin left and that will be ready for dyeing. Whee!

Of course, I also spent quite a bit of time dyeing. Look, Bug Girl, no superwash! And Marcy? Lots of non-merino for you! Don’t say I never did anything for ya.

Fire in the Greenwood:
Self and I collaborated on this one to get a pair of complimentary colors working. I like it. The green isn’t overpowering or christmas-y, it really is the green of new branches. Unfortunately those branches are being consumed by fire, but we can’t have everything now can we? 80% Merino, 20% Alpaca

Rosewood:
A warm red, almost pink wood, with texture and variation of grain. Warm and cozy. 100% Bluefaced Leicester

Then I decided I was enjoying this wood theme.

Hardwood:
Dark, rich, and strong, in a deep grained, heathered brown. 100% Shetland

Then, I decided I liked deep, but needed to get away from the browns and woods a little, and let Self play with his blue.

Midnight Magic:
Deep in midnight shadows magic twists and swirls, lighting the world of imagination and mingling with the deep night. 100% Shetland

Yeah, so apparently I had wood and fire on the brain.

Beyond Embers:
When the fire is almost entirely ash and burned out logs, when only the barest whisps of warmth still radiate from the stones, and the cold begins to encroach. I’ll admit I was close to calling this “Grad School” in the spirit of my energy levels. But I resisted. 100% BFL

And yet another wood. Also, my first actual striped roving.

Japanese Maple:
Warm brown wood and hot rich red leaves that rustle with the winds. 100% Shetland

It was, of course, time to let Self and his cool colors play again. So, we decided to try the suggestion of a friend, and go with complementaries using this method.

Rivers of Gold:
As the river flows, fast and cold down from the mountain before slowing in the shallows, gold glitters in the pan, singing it’s siren song of influence and power and beauty. 100% Shetland

Finally, a new fiber for me.

Garnet Shadows:
Rich, deep, lustrous semi-solid red. 100% Finn, with more shine than the finer fibers, but still sleek and remarkably soft.

Lots done this weekend. Yay. These will be up in the shop shortly.

~The Gnome

Whee! I been dyein’!

My dye pot and I got some quality time this weekend.

10 rovings! Including some fibers I hadn’t dyed before.

You will not, however, see, all 10 beyond this photo. Because 4 of them were promptly snapped up on Sunday when I went to spin with Lynn and Marcy.

Including my personal triumph of the group, and one that’s convinced me I want to mess more with tencel… Amethyst Cystals

Warm and deep shot through with quartz. Mmmm. SW Merino/Tencel. I’m going to have to explore this fiber more.

The front one in that first photo, the dark olive-y green, “Deep Forest Depths” is BFL which I haven’t dyed before either. Also love, also snapped up. Also gone are Rose Dreams and Ecclesia, a soft red semi-solid, and a split gold and purple.

But in ones I do still have to take photos of, another new fiber, Merino/Bamboo. We have a cool color, “Into a Cerulean Sky.” Getting the blue right in the photo is hard. It’s exactly like clear sky with stratus clouds blue. Inspired by the beautiful clear weather we’ve been having as Spring seems to be ramping up for a grand entrance.

Also nice, and very different in blending and texture.

Then I made some semi-solids. I compromised and let myself do one, and Self do one. So, surprisingly, there’s a warm and a cool.

“Winter Sunbeams,” a deep heathered gold. Thinking of warm cozy cats sitting under window sills, soaking up the heat.

and “Mediterranean,” blue/bluegreen fading into eachother

And we again split the difference on mottled/variegated rovings, and each did one of those too.

“Frog and Toad” (inspired by the kids books)

and “Waterfall” cool water sliding over slate stones.

Finally, one in the split style, a 6oz run called “Gems in the Rough”

I also dyed up a little blending silk. “Gold Mine” gold with touches of brown, for carding into fiber for texture and color.

Finally, I made another set of stitch markers.
Fancy Jasper – Amazonite – Garnet

All of these will be in the shop.

Sunday was lovely and my poor thirsty wheel got a wonderful woodbeaming and smells of lemon and wintergreen. She glows. Now I’m gorilla glueing two of my bobbins, and will be doing more shortly. Bah! Don’t know why all the ends (both old and new bobbins) are coming off all at once.

Oh, right, and I added a page to the site. “So you want to buy your friend a yarn?” It’s about yarn, and what you need to know to buy one. It’s focused on the sort of yarn that I do, fiber-wise, but the information is fairly generalizable.

That’s it for now

~The Gnome

Did finish a small bit of spinning. Emphasis on small.

I’m rather fond of the dyeing though, since it’s not my usual but very pretty and spring.

Robin’s Egg

88 yds
Superwash Merino/Cashmere/Nylon
80% / 10% / 10%
2-Ply
Soft-spun

~The Gnome

Experiments went well last week, so I got the weekend to myself. This was good, both for my mental state and the state of my projects.

Sadly, it didn’t help the state of the mess that is my apartment very much.

Anyway, I did three sets of things this weekend:

Dyeing (Mostly roving, one yarn)
Seaming
Stitch Markers

The seaming will be split off into its own post about the memorial afghan. The rest I will talk about here.

First, stitch markers.

I made two more sets of the stone chip markers, in the short variety. Same stones as before
Lapis – Onyx – Moss Agate – Onyx – Garnet – Onyx

With those done, I put on my creative hat again. I thought maybe I should try some more “delicate” stitch markers. Delicate in the light and refined sense, not the fragile sense. I came up with this, and made a set of six…

Labradourite – Garnet (x4) on a gold pin

Then I decided to go the other direction entirely and make some beefier markers. I really like these, except that the hematite they’re made out of is magnetized. That means you can’t keep them really close to each other on a project. I want to get some more hematite that isn’t magnetized to redo these.

Then I got down and dyeing. Mmm, it’s been too long since I’ve had a day to mess around with the dyepot. I started with two slight variations on something you’ve seen before.

A muted and a dark version of “Gold Road.”

Then I started messing with colors a bit more. Tried some more directly related colors, and got Edge of the Sea (A reference to the song, “Far-Off Shore” by Kate Wolf)

Then a person favorite, red, and got Claret Sunset

Then I thought to myself, “Self, these browns and golds and reds are great, but you haven’t tried anything bright. Some people like bright, you know.” And I responded, “Hrm… maybe you’re right, self, I suppose I should try one of those. Blue and yellow? Green and yellow?” Self happily replied, “Green! You never let me do green. It’s all elfin and planty and you never let me play with it! Hell, you’ve only bought me one premade green to play with! Why are you such a jerk, you should let me do more green you big meanie!” And so I gave in, waving my hands, “Ok, ok, ok! Green it is! Never mind Edge of the Sea which you just did, or Into the Green you did a while ago, green it is… whiner.” Luckily for me, Self didn’t catch that last bit.

So I came out with… Pollen Dust. Pollen scattered across the green leaves. Very spring, even if spring isn’t here yet.

Self had a great time with this one. Which is why the yellow is so vivid. Luckily I managed to keep it heathered or it would have shamed the actual flowers!

Well since Self got to play, I wanted to as well. So I did something I rarely do on roving… a semi-solid. A rich dark purple. Like plum juice on your chin. Like berry jam. Like the deep flaws of the darkest purple amethyst… and thus, Amethyst Depths. I like this one. Self thinks it’s boring. I told him to shut up.

Since both I and Self had been satisfied and it was getting later, we decided to work together on one more roving. Hrmm… “Why not one with more colors?” said Self. “Huh, that’s an idea, and we can do it with 6oz instead of 4oz so there will be more space.” I agreed. “But what colors?” Queried Self. “Now THAT is a very good question. If we do three colors, how about starting with a version of that color I used for Amethyst, and work out from there, see what inspires us?” I responded, not quite sure myself.

So I did. And as I pulled out the first part, Self started jumping up and down, “Flowers! FLOWERS!” “Huh?” I quirked an eyebrow, “Yes, they’re lovely… and?” “Our garden! When we were a kid, remember? They had those pretty flowers, that were gold and brown and exactly that burgundy!” I cocked my head, “Wait, the one Matt picked out? The gaillardia?” “Yeah, yeah! The blanket flower! Why do you always use the prissy stodgy name?” Self bounced. “Oh hush you, it’s an excellent idea though, let’s do it.”

And so we did. Gaillardia. Which Self still insists on calling Blanket Flower, which I think is a silly name for a roving, but he insists I point out he disagrees and thinks it sounds too much like a disease and people will think it’s gross.

Guess that’s about all for today. Hopefully, it’s enough! I’ll get these up on the store shortly, except the Gold Road, which someone has dibs on first. If they don’t want them, then they’ll go to the store as well shortly.

So, we’ll leave you with a little seed-headed grass fairy.

~The Gnome