June 30, 2015: fiber arts Tuesday

In the past few days I've been spinning and plying some red and white wool. For a while I was working with lots of red: red, maroon, vermillion, fuchsia, scarlet and every shade in between. Then I noticed that I had very little red in my stash. Time for some red!

Once I've spun and plied a skein of yarn, I soak it in order to wash it and set the twist. Then I hang it out to dry on a hook that's right in the middle of our makeshift herb garden. We had a couple of sunny days, so it didn't take long for this wool to dry.

When the wool is dry and I'm ready to knit with it, I wind it into a ball using a yarn swift and ball winder.

After I've wound the skein into a ball, it's easy to knit from, and doesn't get all tangled. I have several balls of handspun yarn that I'm using in the afghan I'm working on now.

Tomorrow I'll be working with my friend Erin; we'll be using natural materials like red cabbage and walnuts to dye wool, cotton, and silk. Erin, an art professor at WCU, is very experienced at working with cotton and is learning about natural dyes for a class she'll be teaching. Tonight I need to prepare a pound of wool, using alum, cream of tartar, and soda ash. Once I've prepared the wool, it will be ready for the dyeing process we'll be using tomorrow.