Here is that lovely Autumn coloured merino again moving into it’s second metamorphosis. After a couple of swatches and iterations I figured out a sort of a lacy squares pattern. The yarn kind of calls for something more organic and leafy but I wantit to be a nice sister to my felt scarf which was woven in large strips. It doesn’t look very big but it should stretch out a lot when I block it - hopefully enough to go around my neck and tie together.
 
It’s fun to watch the yarn moving through my fingers. The two plies blend together, colour-wise, and separate again every so often so that in some places the colour is very strong and in others it is quite soft. The twist varies as I go along too: Sometimes one ply is fatter than the other and it will puff out around it’s neighbour.  Other times the plies are very even and tightly spun and the yarn is very smooth. I found one two foot section that was somehow not twisted at all - the two plies were perfectly matched but somehow had lost all their twist and just travelled along next to each other.

So... Once you start spinning you develop this need for fibre. And when you look around a little bit on the web you discover all sorts of people dyeing all sorts of fibres in all sorts of beautiful colours. And if you keep looking you find people selling the plain undyedfibre and even the dyes and you think to yourself “I should give this try” and “It can’t be that hard.”


I got some merino roving and Gaywool dyes from The Black Lamb in Ontario. I picked these dyes because they are all ready to go with no measuring or mixing of substances and because the instruction were available from Louet’s web-site and were very simple and straight forward: Measure the appropriate amount of powder (half a cap in my case), add the power to the dye bath (in a pot you will never use for food), bring to a boil, add fibre, poke around a bit and let it boil for about half an hour.

It was very exciting to think I was going to turn fluffy whiteness (see the picture above) into fluffy greeness.

As it turned out, the instructions, while clear and simple, were not actually all that complete: Did they mean a rolling boil or a simmer? How long should I poke it around for? How would I tell when it was done?

I had the dye bath at a slow boil to start. There was steam rising from the surface and a few bubbles but they calmed down when I added the wool. The instructions had said that most of the dying happens in the first four minutes and it was very important to turn the wool over to expose it to fresh dye to get an even colour. I think I probably stirred my wool around for about 10 minutes because I couldn’t see my timer. I poked it every once in a while after that too: it seemed to all be on the surface and standing around staring at it was not very interesting.

After about fifteen minutes the bath started to boil more. I wasn’t sure if this was good or not. The instructions said boil: maybe bubbles were a good thing. I poked the wool under the water a bit more. It wasn’t sticking to the spoon as much as it had been.

At about twenty-five minutes something when click in my head:

Wool + Heat + Water + Agitation = Felt!

I poked my wool... it didn’t stick to the spool like it had as undyed fibre... I let it boil a little longer as I wondered how felted it might be and filled up a sink to rinse it.

So...

How do you like my new felt scarf?

It may be possible to salvage some of this wool for a felting project but part of me really wants to sew little white flowers into it and wear it with a nice earthy blouse. I have more wool so if I’m a little more careful next time I probably could.

 

The coffee table renovation is officially complete. I got the last coats of paint done and Dad came over to help me attach the shelf brackets. The brackets make the table wonderfully sturdy, which is good because it gets dragged around the living room floor a lot.  I think I could even stand on it if necessary.
 

So here is where we started - a very rickety little white table.

The first step was primer and then a few coats of deep green paint.

Once the paint was dry we added eight scrolly shelf brackets (Lee Valley Tools) for some added stability and a little old fashioned style.  That’s Zeke’s bed under the table.

 

This is what I spent Monday afternoon working on (beautifully laid out on the newly finished table).  I’m turning individual flying geese (right) into blocks of three (left). I stuck Anne of Green Gables into the DVD player to provide some interesting background distraction. I recently reread the first four books (actually it’s the first time I’ve gotton past the first chapter in the fourth one) and I always love the movie.