Thursday, January 8, 2009

Bamboo and Wool Oh MY!

My wool.
From the bag
to the pot of hot kool aid dye
to finally being drafted and ready for lovin'





I love my wool.I used a LOT of kool aid for this wool. I used 9 pink lemonades, and 1 cherry and 1 yellow lemonade to get this hot pink color. I dyed about 8 ounces of wool like this. I have a massive pile of it by my sewing machineLOL.




I also have Bamboo! The picture here is me loving the bamboo...yes...love...the...bamboo....ahhhh...sooo soft....

OK I am done.

I am not gonna dye the bamboo I am mixing with the pink. I am gonna do a pink and white stripe/swirl yarn and I was gonna try out holding the two together and spinning all at one...yeah. Thats NOT working. The bamboo is a very challenging spin, so I am going to try ....(insert dramatic music) PLYING! I have already spun up some bamboo here on my spindle. I am doing SOOO good with drafting it too. I am so proud! I am having to draft as I go along because the bamboo dont stick together like wool. The fibers seem to be kinda like my hair, fine and silky! So I peel off a small section of it and just pull the fibers apart to the desired thin-ness as I go along spinning. Its slow but boy is it fun! You can see all the shiny goodness that is the bamboo in the pictures...isnt it nice!

I have a few yards of bamboo on my spindle now, and when i am done with that I will spin some of the wool and then try out the plying thing...should be interesting! I will let you know how it goes! Thanks again to Suespins for the awesome bamboo fiber and the quick shipping. I was about to hyperventilate when I seen the package yesterday I was so happy!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Very pretty pink!!!! You know I love pink like crazy *smiles*

Blisskitty said...

There you go again... Making out with fiber. You're supposed to keep that secret!

Auroras_Garden said...

Dammit Lacy you caught me! I cant help it. The fiber is so soft and nice...it dont talk back or make me hate myself the next morning...its my perfect companion!

Anonymous said...

Hey, thanks for posting pictures and story about your bamboo spinning!!

A few hints for spinning the bamboo on a spindle -
The best way that I have found to do this is to pull of about a 3-5 inch section from the roving, and then spin it from the fold. Make sure and put in enough twist, because it is pretty smooth, as you found out! (LOL)

If you haven't tried spinning from the fold, it's one of the easiest ways to spin on a spindle, IMHO. Here's a YouTube video that shows how it is done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFK6NGwHGgw

Convo me at my etsy shop if you have any other questions!!

Happy spinning!
Sue P

Auroras_Garden said...

Thanks sue! I watched that video and it helps. she is doing basically what I have been doing only she is a lot better at it LOL. She will help me get my technique down. That was such a help this bamboo spinning is going super super slow...it takes forever to make a few yards but I am really enjoying it a lot. It will be so worth the effort when this is done!