Dye Day, Smithtown Heritage Fair

Helloooooooo!!

Gee, it's been awhile. The end of the summer went by so quickly and I was all caught up in the mayhem that goes along with getting the kids back to school and setting the new schedule. My treadmill misses me.

I have done only a minimal amount of knitting on the Secret Sock. Shh!! So much for that.

I have been working on the dreaded black sock alot and I'm about ready to start the heel. I'd best hurry it up because with the daylight getting shorter, it's harder and harder to knit in black. Next thing I knit will most certainly be a LIGHT COLOR. Like this...

Isn't it beautiful? That's a skinny single spun out of that luscious 50% camel down 50% merino we got from Copper Moose. Ah, it's beautiful. Not that easy to spin, it's like spinning dust. The fiber is short and the merino does little to hold it together. I hope I'm putting in enough twist. I only had that with me today and I started a second bobbin. I may put this down and ply this to see how it holds up. I would cry if it fell apart.

Last weekend, we had a dyeing workshop at my Spinning Guild. We dyed yarn the pioneer girl way! Open firepits, dyepots, natural dye. It was a blast. I was imagining witch's cauldrons but it wasn't quite like that. The Guild dyed a ton (ok, a few pounds) of Romney and I brought some of my own fiber to throw in the pots. Here's my BFL black walnut.

It felted a teeny tiny bit but I think that that will be fine when I spin it. I may be spinning this next. We used pokeberries, onionskins, marigolds, black walnuts, tansy, St. John's Wort, goldenrod and some cranberries. It was fun!

Here's our Romney drying on the racks.

A pot of black walnuts about to be cooked up.Onion skins (L) and , if my memory serves me correctly, Hibiscus (R).

I stuck my 4oz of combed top merino in the marigold pot and I'm almost regretting not using the black walnut for that. The black walnut was fabulous! However, I'm happy with the yellow.

Today, we had another event, the Smithtown Heritage Society Fair where we spinners demonstrated and had a great time! I was getting a bit hungry and will bring or make snacks there next year. It was nice to spend a beautiful day under the old trees on the grounds and I was happy to see many children very interested in spinning!

Here's my best boy testing out a drop spindle. Ah, the drum carding demonstration, just lovely. That's a fake sheep, guys!

We all had a great time and discussed our shopping and travel strategy for Rhinebeck. Only 27 more days, you know!