Mari, Steeler and Straw

Aah, natural dyeing. The fine line you sometimes walk between subtle beauty and well, straw. It doesn't have to be this way, in fact it often isn't. And once I knit this yarn, poofy and straw colored, I am sure I will love it. But when you have piles and piles of this colored yarn and fiber, well. You sometimes feel buried under a haystack. And that is why, lovely though it is, it is going back into the dye pot with some madder. A WHOLE LOT of madder.

The fiber itself came from mostly Mari's and a little bit of Steeler's fleece. They are both merino crosses from Homestead. There has been a lot of variation in the merino crosses I've spun, this one is highly crimpy, and medium soft. There was a lot of poof in that sample skein I spun when I first got it, a fine, but disorganized crimp, kind of like some of the ramboulliet from the same farm. I've since spun little bits of it into sock weight yarns and knit bits of it into tiny socks and actually like the fabric I got with it. I dyed the locks a long time ago with pomegranate and fustic mostly I think. Somehow some madder must have worked its way into the mix, there are some strips of red in there. And some of the locks were undyed, I did have the idea of overdyeing some of this in the indigo pot so we'll see if that has an exciting end.

Wouldn't you feel like the miller's daughter too?

I tried a little barber pole yarn for fun with this same fiber. I thought about dipping this in indigo to see the white and yellow colors take the indigo differently but I think I like it just fine the way it is.

And once in a while, I like walking on the wildside with some synthetic dyes. I got this a summer ago at The Fiber Studio. Its natural colored and handdyed BFL. Its my mindless comfort spinning now. I am spinning it with the vague idea of knitting a hat for a little girl I know.