pictures of fair results

i entered 12 things in the fair this year...and got 9 ribbons...3 blue, 4 red, and 2 white. Not bad overall...i did sort of conclude that blue-y colors where popular. anyway...

which one is your fave?

 

 

 

 

fair results

 

 

naturally dyed tussah silk, cabled yarn!

 

well...having finally finished carmen's dyeing job, quit my wdt job (i started at the public library a couple weeks ago) and rearranged my spinning area i am back to being inspired. I carded up some gorgeous purple-y roving last night. i had dyed it with blue and red some months ago...

last night i pushed a ton of merino roving in a jar to try this all again. I put in chestnut brown, aztec gold and red. then i canned it (stuck the jar in a pan and turned on the burner so the water in the jar got hot, then let it sit over night). I pulled it out this morning. No ideedy not what i expected...but gorgeous none the less. it's still rinsing, i'll post pics when i get it carded up.

I spun up, then plied, then cabled some naturally dyed tussah last night. It is pretty! Unfortunately my pics aren't perfect. some of it is a pale green...which doesn't much show in the pic. :-(

I am out of silk! :-( I'm ordering more on Monday. I love my wholesaler!

red and purple skeins

 

other half of bottom skeins

 

close-up of half of the green

 

carmen'

 

fair stuff

well...i went and checked out my fair entries last night. I got several blue, several red and a white. i took stuff with the idea that i would better understand results when i got done. So i took 3 skeins of two ply tussah, one in pastel greens and blue, one in a wild variety, one solid. the pastel got a blue...otherwise the three were almost identical. I dont' know. I guess i need to get the stuff home and look at it all more carefully.

i was disappointed in some things that did place. two things got blue ribbons that were very simple wool singles plied with eyelash...didn't seem difficult, or involved. it all seems very subjective. Like the person judging is basing it on personal, subjective likes maybe.

i hate that. I like understanding rules. I like being "in the running." but when stuff is stricty subjective...there are no real rules. it's all about what you (the judge) think is pretty. doesn't make me want to enter :-(

my second respinning attempt...

2nd attempt at respinning

close-up of second attempt

second attempt

close up of first attempt

my first attempt at respinning

1st attempt ...wound with sewing thread...I won't do that again.

fair entries

so--i hauled all 12 of my entries to the fair today. I've no idea how i'll do. they have a rather strange defiition of "novelty yarn" so i ended up putting some yarn some places i would never have had they not told me to. I had what i call "kitchen sink yarn"--ie. it's got a little of everything but the kitchen sink in it. I spin it all end to end. I would call that a novelty. they disagreed. Only my parlimentary funk yarn fell in that category by their theory.

so....we'll see how it goes

well...not my brightest dye lots, but nearly as bad as i thought! 

dried and looking a little better

St. John's Wort, Red Day Lilies, Pink Hollyhocks, Dk. Red Hollyhocks, mixed red and purple Petunias 

I'm reasonably pleased with my jar dyeing results. I'm still thinking a little more purple and gold would be good...but maybe not. Who can tell? I do like how the plied yarn looks. I think i will enter it in the fair, which was my original plan.

I am not very good at novelty yarn. I have come to this conclusion. I love how some of it looks, but I just can't seem to produce it. I guess that's why my yarn isn't really selling well. :-(

Anyway, my job seems to be morphing into a fulltime one. I guess that's good. I feel torn about it all.

 

final jar dyeing results

this turned out better than i expected. 

mixed red and purple petunias

figured i would get green--instead i got an unimpressive dull grey--hope they dry better :-) 

dk hollyhocks

a rather pink-ish/blue-ish grey...decidedly not what i was hoping for! 

dk pink hollyhocks

once again--not very impressive sort of brown-ish yellow