Dyeing hand-combed, dizzed slivers

I used a 3/16-inch holed diz for the undyed slivers. Fat slivers. Still airy as is typical of non-commercial combed top, but I do put an ever-so-slight twist in them when I wind them into bird's nests. These happen to end up about the same or a little larger diameter as a quart size mason jar. (If using 2-3 little piles of dye in the mason jar, use small-mouth jars). I just stuck one in on top of the other and pushed them down. In this case, I packed a little too tight because I do have some white areas, but I'll take it. It's okay for a first try.

One thing I'm discovering TODAY (after the fact) and it surprises me I didn't notice this before. Hand-dizzed slivers are so airy that they look extremely delicate. Well, they ARE. However, that's in their airy virgin, untouched state, right off the diz. Once you start bird-nest wrapping one, however, if you stay within the staple length with your wrapping hand (the wrap-OR, not the wrap-EE) you can put a fair bit of pulling pressure on that sliver and make it a LOT more dense!

Yes, I did get some extremely minor "felting" action, but very minor. I'm now thinking that if I bird-nest these little suckers with that pulling pressure on them I discovered this morning, then the sliver itself will be way more dense and a lot tougher under the stress of dye-handling. In fact, I'm going to experiment with this pulling more. It was almost feeling as though if I were to pull a little more, it wouldn't drift apart (the big fear) but it would smooth out and just be a whole lot more like commercial top. Or let's just say a worthy step, at least, in that direction.

Whoa! This photo picked up a whole lot more saturated color appearance than I got. The real top is actually more caramel color base, then take it from there. Nothing in it is this INTENSE.



This is the relative size of my slivers. These happened to have been dyed in the fleece state, then combed, but size is the same.



The perspective is off. These look smaller than they are. Some of them actually are smaller. The big one is more like my typical size. This is in its fluffy wrap state, I hadn't discovered the pulling and smoothing capability yet when I wrapped that one.


By the way, these colors were under-saturated hues of Teal Blue, China Jade, Blue Spruce and Avocado (Country Classics by ProChem) in the order of intensity down to lightest color, with only one small bird's nest of the Avocado combed so far. All done in mason jars, then steamed in a canner. I'm thinking these alternated in the spinning, then the single plyed on itself however it lands (not Navajo only because I don't know how to do that yet) will make for some pretty yarn.

***** SECOND TRY ******

1. Full Intensity Saturation - same blues and greens (one color each jar)
2. Tried again for target rust/caramel/yellow colorway
3. This time I unwound my bird's nests from their fluffy wound state and re-wound them, pulling the fiber MUCH tighter and smoother so it would be more condensed. (This is a matter of starting out with fat slivers to begin with, dizzed as densely as I dared without causing a bottleneck bunch-up, then holding hands close enough together not to violate staple length, pulling the fiber tight and smooth, and re-winding into far more tightly condensed bird's nests.

Wet "blobs" - VERRRRRY little handling at this stage. All I did was plop them into the salad spinner, then took the picture.





After salad spinner -- It just naturally separated into sliver form. Still want to handle this very carefully. But it does stay together in sliver form! Yeeehaw.


It lets you carefully pick it up, drape it on a hanger to dry, and stays together. This whole trial WITH the bird's nests re-wrapped so the fibers were pulled tighter really seems to be a whole lot better. The fibers within the sliver were definitely less disturbed. Note even the parts where you can see the white hanger showing through. Those were likely thinner to begin with, but yet there's still integrity there.




Here was my setup (only workable in good weather obviously). What I didn't move off the forward bench were a container of inside/outside ant spray and another like container of weed killer. (Those are not dye equipment.)

Combs photos

I exchanged the big 2-pitch Valkyrie's for a set of his Mini combs, and bought a 2nd set for Jenny, both with stationery bases. The big Valkyrie's were just too much comb for my shoulder and wouldn't suit the finer fiber I'm likely to be working with. I LOVE his Mini combs!

2 pitch, tines approx. 3/16ths dia (maybe a smidge under), set 3/16ths" apart, 4 inches long, WITH bend, super well balanced and not heavy. LOVE these combs! Amazingly, the least expensive out of all of them and they'd be hot contenders if I could only have one set.





Here are the Indigo Hound English combs. 5-pitch, "Fine" (as opposed to "Standard" or "Regular)". Vicious looking little bastards. With these, and the non-visibility of the back tines from where you're working, it's not a matter of whether you're gonna poke yourself and break skin, it's when.
Gotta be incredibly, overly, ridiculously careful with these. But I am definitely going to renew my tetanus shot. Soon! I've already poked a couple times, just haven't broken skin yet.

Making heads or tails of a fleece?

03: Whole Fleece spread out as best I could keep the given shape. It's easy to assume the head is A and the butt end is D. However if I stood back looking at it from the side (B and C closest to me, A off to my left and D to my right) I could almost picture how the head and butt end COULD be on the B/C sides. I simply don't know what I'm looking at. Or for.

Note: The fleece IS longer from A to D than from B/C to B/C, if that helps.


04: This is a close up of A on the main photo.


05: This would be from the left side of B, you can see where the smooth fleece begins and match up this photo with the "whole fleece" photo.


06: This would be about the center (around B)


07. This would be between B and C or it would be C


08: Texture break - comparing adjacent locks


09: Would be from other side of C


10: Would be from one side of C


I skipped numbering "11" somehow so there are two possibilities as to what we're seeing. I'm listing both as were written in the notes.

11/12 (likely this is A locks up close)


12/13 (A locks up close OR B locks up close)

Vacuum Pack Fleece Storage

I'm slowly working my way through scouring four Romney fleeces (40 pounds of fleece in the grease) and separating it into locks according to fine-ness.

A fail-safe storage system is becoming pretty important to me. Moths, moisture, and also the space that gets eaten up storing fleece which is extremely fluffy, hence a space hog.

I'm experimenting with vacuum-packing. This first is with my Foodsaver. I have Space Bags at the ready in case this works well. Based on what I'm seeing, I think this might be a great solution, both to the potential of moths and also to moisture. Now add it taking up virtually no space.

Experiment: A little over 1/2 oz. of scoured fleece. Clean, but still uncombed, so you'll see twigs and other vegetable matter in it at this stage.



Here it is vacuum-sealed. This Foodsaver bag was 8" long by 11" wide. The fleece was stacked in the bag 3-4 locks deep on one side, not on the other. Pretty much as you see it above. The thickness of the vac-sealed bag was maxiumum 1/8". It was by no means packed to capacity but way thicker packing would only add a little in vac-packed bag thickness.


Here's after cutting open the bag, letting air in. Fleece untouched.


Here's the fleece as it came out of the bag, I haven't yet touched the locks.



Here's the locks, as I would lash them onto my combs. They look exactly the same as what I've been lashing onto my combs after scouring. And I didn't need to do anything different than I would have gathering them off the drying sheet.


My conclusion? It was only stored this way overnight but I see nothing whatsoever about time being a factor here. No moisture can get to it, there's minimal if any air in the bag. Moths wouldn't smell it.

Dye Momma, Dye!

Oh, man. I am just so freaking excited I can't see straight! Yesterday my new spinning group (new to me, old to them) had their annual Dye Day. It rained some, but no big deal. It cleared up, and for a while was purrrr-fect weather. It started getting hot not long after lunch, but by then we were winding down.

Emily, the woman who kindly contacted me through a fluke of finding out there was another spinner in town, just to let me know there was a local spinning group, pretty much took me by the hand, knowing I knew ZERO about dyeing. Nothing. Nada. Zilch! I'd brought a total of 8 oz. of scoured locks (four very sadly too-loosely packed sausage rolls wrapped in tulle that all but came apart in the process) and also 2 partial balls of Romney commercially-combed undyed top. She showed me the mason jar method, and that's pretty much what I used for the top.

OMIGOD! LOOK AT THESE! I can now DO this... myself!

My very first. AND absolute favorite. A trilogy of plum, caramel and yellow




And my old standard color combo that I just can't resist. I just had to see if I could get it myself.


But there isn't enough of it so I can combine it with another for this. Either spin some of each alternately for one consistent colorway or spin them separately and stripe them (same colors, opposite dominants).


And I decided to break my boycott of purple 2 weeks ago. This is my first purple thing. I've always hated purple. But dammit, playing with fiber just makes every color something you just have to have!


Here it is with some of it unbraided.


And then there's this. Not really enough to do anything with, but okay, a few stripes in something, maybe even the purple. GO MAD!!


And even this, which isn't my favorite. But it's just fine!


Dye Momma Dye! Here it all is on the washing machine. I have a feeling it's not entirely dry inside, and I probably shouldn't have braided it yet. But such eye candy!!


The loose locks? Well, the locks we just dyed in vats (solids). A "hunters beware" type orange, a knocked down more golden orange and flat out serious, historical royal family, Joseph's Coat type purple. The fourth? THE most amaaaazing hybrid of the orange that I think we overdyed in some sort of salmon, and it came out either an intense watermelon or a perfect balance within coral. But Jenny came unglued over that color. I mean, it was like showing something shiny to a blonde. She just gazed into it, or maybe through it, but she just looked totally hypnotized by it, so I gave it to her. (I kept one lock just in case someone might someday know how the heck to get that color again.) But she's working with something in an almost companion color and I had the feeling she'd work this into that.

What a FUN day that was. Sheeesh. I hate to say it, but my treasured canner is going to be forfeited away from food use VERY soon. When I go to Hanover at the end of the month, I'm hitting the LYS (an hour from here) and it's going to be dye buying day, because no WAY am I done with this!

Cheating on my English Combs... Already?

Thanks to the noticing of an ad by one very nice Spinwyn on Rav, I connected with a set of used Indigo Hound 5-pitch English combs. Yet to arrive and the seller lives in Canada so it'll take a while. They happen to be the "Fine" and not the "Standard" but due to a 5-month illness, Indigo Hound is so back ordered at this point that it could be a couple of months before my LYS can get an order filled. Meanwhile, with 40 pounds of Romney fleece, I'm going to need something more than my PackFlats.

The choices of more "serious" combs have been pretty much either multi-pitch English combs (straight tines) or 2-pitch Viking combs (curved tines), both made by Indigo Hound. The Vikings started intriguing me also, but again, Indigo Hound is pretty much the only game in town for either. Well, other than Forsyth combs --$400 but oh so lustworthy!-- which have BOTH curved tines AND multi rows (4-pitch). I'd read very good things about Volkyrie in the 2-pitch curved Viking combs, but always with the parenthetical note, "no longer in production."

Well, along then, comes a new Rav poster -- none other than the maker of Valkyrie combs! He's been thinking of coming out of hybernation and going back into production. I was curious to see his Viking combs but I'd been also very intrigued with getting a hackle for blending. That's another thing that's just not out there. And in one of his posts, he mentioned still having an 18-inch hackle from 5 years ago that he'll sell.

So I connected with him yesterday because he just happens to live nearby. And I bought his 18-inch hackle. Can we say "serious, fearsome piece of equipment"? Yes, let's say that. Five-inch-tall, 2-pitch tines, but 18 inches of them. I see great possibilities for this thing in blending colors from dyed locks by lining them up in the final pass, one color next to the other, and dizzing off one or more continuous color changing slivers. With 40 pounds of Romney fleece (which will eventually be dyed for just that purpose), a hackle could be a terrific tool for that.

So here's what that tool looks like. The extra space on the ends are for C-clamps or bolting it down permanently to a work station.



Meanwhile, again still waiting for my English combs which might very well do everything I need, I just had to try his bent-tine Viking combs. And ohhhh, did they EVER feel great in my hand. Terrific grip size. Plus if those IH English combs prove to be too heavy to wield for my arthritic shoulder, the Vikings are what I'd be buying, most likely. So jumping the gun since he's not producing them yet but had a set or two left over, I bought a set.





Here's a shot of them from the side. Such a nice bend! Not overdone, just enough to avoid tine catches.


So not for casual storage, that's for sure. Time will tell if I'm going to be able to use either the Vikings or the English because of a bumb shoulder, but I've decided there's pretty much no way to know which kind I'll find works for me, if either, without just working with them more than an on-the-spot test combing.

So that's my tool stash addition, from a very expensive yesterday.

First Quickie Color Blending Test on Drum Carder

Two unlikely colors combined...