2013 Yarn & Fiber Colors – Weeks 23 -26

Aloha all and Happy 1st Day of Tour de Fleece!

This is my 2nd year participating in TdF, so I’ll be spinning wool for the next 21 days (resting on the same days as the cyclists) and seeing how much wool I can make into yarn.

Here’s a photo of my wheel and the wool I’m hoping to get through this year.

In total, it is just over a pound of wool to spin, and this is what I’ve done so far today:

More spinning to come! Here are the colors for weeks 23 – 26.

AVOCADO CHEESECAKE 2 in merino/silk roving and merino/bamboo lace yarn (new to the shoppe!)

COFFEE BEAN & TEA LEAF in mixed BFL roving and merino/cashmere/nylon fingering yarn

HYDRANGEAS in Sweet Grass Targhee roving and sparkle lace yarn

A new colorway, COOL JEWEL PLAID, was the outcome of me experimenting with kettle dyeing again. I dyed these skeins with ‘layering’ in mind, so started with one color in the dyebath, waited until that color was exhausted, then added the next color. This colorway is made with a blue base and green overlay in sparkle lace yarn and sw merino heavy fingering weight yarn.

Here are a few other kettle dyed colorways.

HAWAIIAN RED DIRT in Falkland British merino fingering yarn and sw merino lace yarn.

A new colorway, ICY BLUE, in sw light fingering weight (new to the shoppe, at 750 yds per skein!) and sw heavy fingering weight yarn.

And another new colorway, STRAWBERRIES WILD in sw BFL/nylon fingering yarn and merino/silk lace yarn.

MISTY GRAPE is another experimental colorway in corriedale cross roving.

I also made up some ‘mini’ batts.

MINI BATT Brown/Blue has a base of CVM Romeldale wool (washed and combed by me), with merino wool and banana fibers.

This MINI BATT is made from hand-dyed merino in blue, green and red/brown.

Lastly, here are a couple more ballet/pointe shoe bags in magenta and aqua-multi.

Happy Summer everyone!

Advertisement

Yarn & Fiber Colors for Weeks 35-36

Some weekends I do really great with organizing my time to dye/paint and crank out a good amount of dyed wool. It also helps when the creativity hits me just right. Week 35 was one of those weekends for me and I was able to dye up 11 skeins of yarn 🙂 That was so much fun, and I didn’t even mind the re-skeining (by hand!). Here are some of the colorways:

VIEW FROM FURIGEN in merino/tencel lace:

THANKSGIVING in merino/tencel fingering:

SURF ‘N’ TURF in merino/silk lace weight:

TEQUILA SUNRISE in superwash merino lace weight:

SEA DRAGONS in merino/bamboo fingering:

PEACH COBBLER in merino/nylon/stellina fingering:

MORNING at BILTMORE INN in superwash merino/nylon fingering:

BILTMORE BENCH in superwash merino, fingering:

COMET TRAIL in sparkly merino/silk lace weight:

EIFFEL AT DUSK in superwash merino lace:

HALONA in a tweed fingering:

Some handspun fun . . .

GOLDEN PINEAPPLE in Peruvian wool:

HIEROGLYPHICS in superwash BFL

enjoy!

Yarn & Fiber Colors for Weeks 33-34

Aloha All! Here are my yarns/fibers from weeks 33-34!

This is AHI POKE in superwash merino wool lace weight. The Fiber Fairy (she-who-will-not-be-named) secretly gifted this skein to another fiber enthusiast. How cool is that?

WINDWARD WATERS is a merino/cashmere/nylon blend fingering yarn that reminds me of the waters off Hawaii.(yes, i know, what doesn’t remind me of Hawaii . . . )

AQUA OVERLAY is also a mer/cash/nylon blend. This was dyed with a beautiful bright aqua, then overlayed with black. I love how the aqua bits poke through here and there.

BEACH UMBRELLA is named for all those colorful umbrellas you see on any given day at Waikiki Beach. A lot of the hotels will rent out these large umbrellas to offer a bit of shade to sun worshipers.

A couple versions of RAINY DAY EIFFEL in Falkland British Merino/Tencel lace and a “Sparkle” fingering weight.

More LAVENDER LEMONADE in mer/silk lace and mer/bamboo fingering weight.

And some wool!

This is FALL HARVEST, a South American wool top.

Oh, sigh and WAIMEA CANYON in merino/tencel. Swoon. . .

WAIMANALO STORM in targhee!

PEACH COBBLER in BFL/Silk:

STREETS OF VERSAILLES in merino/silk:

and the inspirational photo taken on a street in Versailles, France

a quick note on this photo, this was taken Thanksgiving Day 2009. we were trying to find a place for lunch and i knew exactly where i wanted to go. since i allow myself only ONE Big Mac sandwich per year, i always wait until i’m someplace special to have it. i made my family have Thanksgiving lunch at the McDonald’s in Versailles and it was the BEST Big Mac i’ve ever had! when i see this photo i actually don’t think of King Louis XIV’s grand palace, but of two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. . .

SUNSET OVER TITLUS in superwash merino:

and the inspirational photo taken atop Mount Titlus, Engleberg, Switzerland @ 10,000 feet up

SURF ‘N’ TURF in BLF/Alpaca:

and THANKSGIVING, in merino/bamboo:

Also, a couple weeks ago, I found a great site with instructions on how to blend fibers using hand carders so I thought I’d give it a go. I took about 1/2 ounce of merino/silk fiber dyed up in my Ka’anapali colorway and blended them in about 2 passes through the hand carders. I did pull the roving out just as in the website and it worked. Here’s a quick photo of the pulled roving ‘nest’ on top of the original non-blended wool. Fun!

enjoy!

Yarn & Fiber Colors for Weeks 27-28

I wasn’t feeling too well this past week so I’m behind in my posting, so here are the colorways for Weeks 27 and 28.

This is RAINFOREST, a Falkland British Merino/Tencel fingering yarn:

Ah, and SOUTH SEAS, a Falkland British Merino/Tencel lace weight yarn:

I tried my hand at LOVE SHACK in lace weight. This is a merino/silk blend with over 1000 yards!

And a sparkly VENETIAN THUNDERSTORM, in a merino/silk/stellina lace weight yarn:

What’s summer without some bright colors? This one was inspired by a potted plant I used to have that would once-in-a-while bloom a pretty ORANGE HIBISCUS. This is a superwash merino/nylon fingering yarn.

And my homage to the south with SOUTHERN SUMMER SUNSET in a tweed fingering weight:

LANIKAI HIKE is a new colorway inspired by a photo I took while on the Lanikai Pillbox Hike in Oahu. This is a merino/cashmere/nylon blend. Yummers!

AUMOE 2 is a fluffy Targhee wool top of dark blues, blacks and grays.

And another LIGURE SUNSET in superwash merino lace weight yarn.

enjoy!

Yarn & Fiber Colors for Week 26

Whew! Summer is here! After a very hot 4th of July weekend with lots of time for dyeing and all things yarny, here are a few colorways for ya:

WATER & MOONBEANS is a handspun yarn made from fiber from 2 etsy artisans. Water is a cashmere/silk blend from CorgiHillFarm, and Moonbeams is a merino/bamboo/silk/sparkle blend that ws part of a “fiber club” shipment from SosaeCaetano. Both were beautiful on their own but together made a beautiful 2-ply yarn.

LAVENDER LEMONADE is named after a drink found at a local vegetarian/vegan restaurant. I must admit at first I was skeptical to try an all-vegetarian place since I am such a carnivore, but this particular restaurant is awesome.  Native Foods is a chain so I would definitely recommend trying their Lavender Lemonade if you have one near you.

This one is a superwash merino/nylon wool roving:

While this one is a merino/bamboo fingering weight yarn:

HAWAIIAN RED DIRT, named for the famous dirt from the island what will never come off your white clothes no matter how hard you try, is a superwash merino lace weight yarn:

LIGURE SUNSET 2 is a Targhee Top roving – so bouncy!! This time around the black dye didn’t break as much as I liked so I added some brown to add more color.

LOVE SHACK is also a superwash merino wool named for a bus stop in Days Bay, Wellington, NZ.

And lastly, AHI POKE, named for one of my favorite Hawaiian dishes of raw tuna fish, onions, seaweed and spices!! Yummmmmers!

This one is a superwash merino wool fingering yarn:

And this one is a Peruvian wool roving:

Wheeeee!! Happy Summer everyone 🙂 Enjoy!

Yarn & Fiber Colors for Weeks 24-25

Alooooha!! Well, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been focused on work stuff helping my crew towards a big goal. This past Friday was a big milestone for us (and was a successful one! whoo hooo!) so I’ve got a bit more breathing room for fiber fun! Since I wasn’t able to post last week, here are the colors for weeks 24 and 25.

I’ll start with KAANAPALI BEACH, a Falkland British merino/tencel fingering yarn. I just LOVE the sheen on this yarn!

PEACH BLUSH is a very pretty merino/nylon/stellina (sparkle) fingering weight yarn in grays and peach!

LIGURE SUNSET roving in Sweet Grass Targhee – GASP!! You literally just want to climb into this wool and take a nap.

SUNSET OVER FüRIGEN is a superwash merino lace weight wool inspired by our trip to Fürigen, Switzerland.

ZION 2 is a superwash merino wool roving inspired by Zion National Park in Utah. I’m still amazed at how the colors came out!

TOMATO BASIL was so fun to make. I found the dyed merino/romney cross fleece from etsy artisan, sdspin, and hand carded the wool before spinning. The first ply is a nice red while the second ply is a ‘tomato basil’ mix of beige, pinks and green. Towards the end I ran of red so I plied the last few yards with the remaining tomato basil color. This yarn is roughly heavy worsted with some thick-thin qualities as well.

And finally, MORNING AT BILTMORE INN is a superwash lace weight yarn inspired by – yup, you guessed it – a morning at the Biltmore Inn. A few summers ago the hubby and I spent some time exploring the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC and I woke up early one morning – probably jet lag – and opened the curtains to this beautiful vista of the dewy grounds and the town in the far background.

enjoy!

Yarn & Fiber Colors for Week 22

In this episode of National Fiber-graphics, we start off in the City of Lights (Paris) where we view an Egyptian exhibit in the world famous Louvre Museum. . .

I love ancient Egyptian history and the Louvre had a plethora of artifacts including sarcophagi, mummies and stone tablets etched with HIEROGLYPHICS. Some of these hieroglyphics were of a gold coloring against a stark gray/black stone. This fingering weight yarn is a nod to those ancient texts.

In another ancient topic, this BFL wool in MEDIEVAL WALL colorway was inspired by the ‘old town’ wall in Lucerne, Switzerland.

On the other side of the world, other colorways are playing fun. COCONUT LIME in a tweed fingering yarn gets its fun coloring from 2 plies of non-superwash merino and 1 ply of superwash.

And what’s summer without some tropical drinks? or a sorbet? in a sparkly lace weight yarn! TROPICAL SORBET is just similar to the sparkle sock yarn I have dyed up in the past, but in lace weight – gasp! How fun is that?

and we end this week’s journey in my most favorite place in the world…Hawaii. more specifically, the island of Maui. KAANAPALI BEACH is a tribute to a photo I took back in 2003 when our friends got married on the island. As one of the bridesmaids, I was able to share in a spa day with the girls. While awaiting for my treatment I took a photo of the beach from the hotel balcony. I am more than thrilled to represent this colorway in a Falkland British Merino/Tencel lace weight yarn:

enjoy!