Inspired by a Nose Hankie Box

 

(or: What Cabin Fever Looks Like When You're The Treadler)

 



Ah, February in northwoods and this weekend we're enjoying gusty breezes off of Lake Superior with pounding flecks of snow. It's pretty, (pretty dang cold), and it's very white out there, too white.

I need some color.

Guess I can't look to nature to inspire me over to the dye pot in a fervent attempt to capture some fantastic color combinations onto wool. No brilliant display of autumn leaves, nor woodsy mosses nestled against blue pine needles and tiny, purple wildflower blossoms to gaze upon. Just white. And, this wool is already white. Where's the challenge in that?

But, hey, Claxton sure did pick out a lovely hankie box at the grocery store! (You have cabin fever your way, I'll have it mine, which right now means attempting to spin a yarn that matches this hankie box.)



Thus far in the process I'm fairly happy with the dye job and am starting to think it does pay to take copious dye notes and double check weights and measures. Did you know 2 nickels weigh 10 grams? That's straight out of my winter diary!

 

Preparing the dyed fiber for spinning: I decided to draft out some of the roving and see what it looked like:

 

 

Then I ran another portion of the roving gently through the drum carder which blended the colors a bit:

 

Here they are side-by-side:

 

I'll spin them each up seperately into little skeins of yarn and then take more pictures for further comparison. Why? Because the wind is howling, our "blustery mix" is now a "severe weather warning", Claxton's upstairs fighting with the vaporizer and I think it's too early in the day to start drinking.