Show And Tell

The prompt for today's Kentucky Wool Week photo challenge is Show and Tell, so I'm going to use this as an opportunity to show something I did over the summer and tell how I did it.  If I keep this up, I might eventually get the blog caught back up :-).

Instagram followers might remember taking a video tour of some fleeces getting ready to be shipped off to Stonehedge Fiber Mill and then seeing the following picture a few weeks later.  The project in the works is a new Lamb Camp yarn that for now I'm calling The Bottle Lamb Edition.  It will be a blend of every single bottle lamb I've ever raised.

I should say the video tour showed at least a tiny bit of wool left from every lamb...except Punkin.  I really, really wanted to include Punkin, the lamb who started it all.  While I didn't have any wool left, I did have some leftover yarn from way back when I paid someone to spin for me before I learned that I liked doing such things.  I wondered if it would be possible to un-spin some of that yarn.

In 25 words or less...yarn is really nothing more than fiber held together by twist.  You spin two singles and then you spin those two singles together to get a two ply yarn.  Without getting really complicated, that's all you really need to know to follow what I decided to try.

The first step was to un-twist the two plies.  I tried to do this as a whole skein, but it got way too messy and was headed for disaster, so I started cutting off a yard or so at a time.

I then tied it to the hook on a drop spindle and started twirling it backwards to untwist the plies.

Then I pulled the two plies away from each other.

So far, so good.

Next I tied one of the singles to the drop spindle and twirled it backwards to take out the spinning twist. 

After the twist was removed, I pulled the now unspun yarn apart into 4" pieces and lashed them all onto my hand cards and then brushed the pieces to make sure everything was loose and flowing.  The yarn had been sitting for 18 years so it was a bit compressed and felted.  

This was a Huge Job.

Crossing that last and most special name off the board?  Worth every hour.

Kentucky Wool Week

Normally this week would be spent frantically getting everything finished and set up for the Kentucky Wool Festival.  We lost both the spring and fall festivals this year :-(.   We are all not only missing the income those festivals would generate, but also the social aspects of it as well.  Most of us don't get out much.  Those festivals are a fun way to catch up with each other.

The Kentucky Sheep and Goat Development Office, Kentucky Natural Fiber Center, Kentucky Fiber Trail and Kentucky Wool Festival got together to create Kentucky Wool Week as a fun way for us all to socialize a little on social media and at the same time help promote Kentucky wool and our small businesses.

This year everything is based around a photography challenge. I'm hoping things will be settled down next year and we can expand Kentucky Wool Week to include some educational classes, competitions and fiber gatherings throughout the state.

Today's challenge prompt is Color.  You know, my favorite topic ;-).  Just to throw everyone, I'm going to actually post a picture of a color besides white or gray today!  There is, of course, more to the story. 

Back in August 2018 (yes, you read that correctly) Miss B and I dyed some wool with marigolds.  We had a big bag of yellow and orange blooms and a big bag of yellow and burgundy blooms.  We dyed some white Border Cheviot (PPPP) and some light gray Jacob (Billy Belly and Allie).

I think we used Alum as our mordant.  I'm sure I took a bunch of fun and pretty pictures that would probably remind me, but without a deep dive into the archives, all I have is the above picture...which has been sitting on my desktop as a reminder that I needed to write up a full blog post about this...since 2018. 

We dyed both white and light gray wool in both marigold pots.  I remember that the yellow and burgundy marigolds provided a slightly darker, almost greener, yellow.  You can sort of see that in the picture above.  

I know that I combed all of my share and I believe I spun the brighter of the two yellows.  It's kind of hard to say at this point though because I kept everything in a cute basket on my workbench so I could enjoy looking at it...which I thoroughly did...until I realized the dark rich yellows were fading and I then packed them away :-(.

The marigolds are in full bloom in the dye garden right now and that combined with the color prompt inspired me to pull the still mostly slightly colorful yarn out and finally share some pictures.  I'm now sort of toying with picking some of the flowers and tossing everything back into the dye pot and restoring the yarns to full color. 

It makes me sad to pick flowers though.  I've got plenty of poke weed berries right now though and it wouldn't make me too sad to boil those before they end up all over my car ;-).  Maybe I'll see if Miss B is up for a new natural dyeing adventure.  If we do, I promise I'll post the pictures much quicker.

Regardless, I can now take the yellow pictures off my desktop because I finally did a 'sort of' post about a fun thing we did...a couple of years ago.  I also cleaned out my refrigerator the other day, so look out!

If you are interested in joining in with the Kentucky Wool Week photo challenge, jump in!