Busy, busy!

Ok, guys. I have been a busy, busy bee during all of this ice and sleet. Do you remember my new Patrick Green drum carder that I got for Christmas? It's been put to good use. Oh, and I think that the only one who knows this is Kae, but I got dyes for Christmas from Tommy, and Kae gave me some citric acid in exchange for some farm-grown eggs from my Mom (thanks for the bargaining chip, Mom!).

What did I do first? I grabbed some Austrailian Merino grown right here in Oklahoma from Willow Creek Farms. I had purchased something like 12 oz. of this last Rendezvous, two bags for me, one for Rick. One bag I dyed red, the other I dyed yellow. The result?















A somewhat yellow, somewhat red carded batt that has splotches of orange. I think I'll call this McDonald's Lava.

Recently I made a purchase of some Peruvian Alpaca from Gourmet Yarn Co. When I washed it this horrible smell came from our sink, and the water started sudsing. I don't know what it was treated with, but it was just awful!! It was much better once we pulled it out of the sink, and into the dyepot it went! Out it came, a deep green, the same color as some green and white silk that Kae gave me once upon a very long time ago. I carded them together, ended up with a mix that is roughly 80/20 alpaca/silk. This is how it turned out:















Do you remember this? I decided that I might better like the look of it after it had been run through the carder once. So I pulled some of it off in lengths that were somewhat matching and into the carder it went! I've so far ended up with some batts that are more purple than blue, more blue than green, and more green than anything else! I can tell I'm going to have to play with this one a little bit more to get something consistent to spin.















I have three batts completed that I'm happy with, and two that I'm going to have to play around with. I still have a ton of bfl that I need to card, and then I can get to spinning it! I'm so far behind in the Dye-Spin-Knit along-I should get a move on!.....

...however I haven't been. Most of my other projects have gone by the wayside this weekend other than the carding, the spinning of this















-which is some of the silk I bought awhile back from the Silkworker, and cleaning my spare room (which is, for all intensive purposes, the craft room). I'm trying not to despair! There's so much in there and most of the non-knitting, craft related BAGS need a major purge! It's going to be a lot of work this week. Wish me luck!

(edit to add: Project Spectrum II is starting up again this year! This time there will be three color choices over a period of two months each. Lots of fun-go join!)