Russet, Sky Blue and Emerald Roving All Spun Up

My first hand dyed roving is all spun up!!! The thickness is a lot more even then my first attempt at spinning. Here is a pic:

I spun approximately 50 gr of merino and got about 56 yards. Not sure what category that makes my yarn fall into but I think that it is a bulky yarn. Not sure yet what I will make with it. Maybe a neck warmer or a purse. I'll wait till inspiration hits me.

Right now I am spinning the Polypay pencil roving that I got. I'm not liking it too much. I don't have to draft it since it is so thin already and the yarn is coming out very consistent. But it is too easy. Maybe I need a challenge but I don't think I'm learning anything when I'm spinning this fiber. I'm just going through the motion of spinning. Think I'm just going to spin a spindle worth and then ply it. I'll keep the rest for when I get my spinning wheel. I can use it to learn how to spin with the spinning wheel without worrying how to draft at the same time. Once I have the motions down I can try drafting and spinning at the same time.

On a different note the reason why I did not post my yarn last weekend it because I went out and partied! It was so much fun. We went out to celebrate my birthday which is tomorrow. I went out with my best friend and a friend from work joined us a bit later. We danced like crazy and had way too much rum and cokes and tequila shots. My feet were still hurting the next day.

It made me realize I don't go out nearly enough. I forgot how much fun it can be. There is no reason why I shouldn't go out more, I'm single and still young. Guess it's because I work evenings and every other weekend. My best friend is also married so I don't think her husband would appreciate it if she went out with me all the time. Oh well it was fun anyway.

Dyed Blue Face Leicester

As promised here is the picture of the dyed Blue Face Leicester. It is a mixture of russet, a mixed purple and brown. It is pretty uniform in colour with some areas that are darker.

The colour is actually starting to grow on me. It's not what I had in mind but while taking pictures of my stash for Ravelry I realized the colour is very similar to a ball of Mountain Colors that I have. I bought it a the Kitchener Knitter's Fair last September to make some gauntlets but haven't made them yet. Maybe when I spin this fiber I'll make a hat to go with them. I don't actually own a hat and it might come in handy. ;o)

The name of the colorway of the Mountain Colors is Red Hawk Tail. It's really pretty. I've been looking around for a pattern for gauntlets but haven't found one I like yet. I think I might design my own when I come around to knitting them. Can't think of knitting gauntlets right now. It's too warm. Spring is definitely here.

I'm probably going to wait before I spin this fiber. The Polypay pencil roving is really calling me and I want to try it out. My hand dyed merino that I was spinning is done! It is now hanging to dry in my bathroom. It came out really nice. I think it's a little over twisted. Hopefully it will relax abit before I knit with it. I don't know what I'm going to make with it. I have only 56 yards of it. I'll take a picture of when it's dried.

Not too happy with Canada Post

So I ordered some fiber from a fiber store in Ontario last Tuesday. I was all excited. I ordered three different fibers: 225 gr of Blue Face Leicester, 1 lb of superwash Merino/Nylon and 22o gr of Polypay pencil roving. The shipment went out on Wednesday and I received it Thursday.

Now here comes the problem. As I was leaving my apartment to go do some laundry on Thursday I notice my package outside my door. The postman did not ring my door bell to give it to me. He just left it there. The bottom of the box looked banged up real bad but at the time I thought nothing of it. I was just excited that my fiber had arrived.

I open up the box and this is what I find.

As you can see there are only two fibers instead of three so something is obviously missing. One of the fibers is pink with a business card of the store and it is unlabeled. The pink fiber is very thin so I am assuming that it is the polypay pencil roving. The larger bag is labeled 225 gr of Blue Face Leicester so I assume that that is correct.

Which means I'm missing the 1 lb of mills end merino/nylon roving. Also I was suppose to get the same amount of pencil roving as the BFL.

I was not a happy camper.

I e-mailed the owner back about my shipment and didn't get a response right away. At this point I'm not sure exactly what I have and what happened. I go do a night shift that night, come home and go to bed. When I get up later Friday morning I check my e-mail and still no response. I'm thinking, "OK she must not of gotten my e-mail yet, she'll e-mail me soon."

Go to work that afternoon and come back home later that evening and still no response. I'm getting a little mad now. I'm wondering if I've wasted my money ordering from this store. I decide I'm going to look more carefully at my package. I take the fibers out and see that white fiber is one complete roving so the fibers are not mixed up. I look at the box and I realize that the bottom of the box that looked really banged was actually riped 3/4 of the way around and taped back up.

My package has been tampered with.

So Saturday morning I send the owner an other e-mail with pictures this time telling her about the box and what is in my package. I go to work again (I'm on a 6 day straight stretch) and come home and there is a voice mail message on my machine.

It's the owner of the shop and tells me that for sure they sent me the three fibers that I ordered and thinks that Canada Post has either damaged the box in the one day that it was in their possession and they did not put the 2 fibers that fell out back in or someone at the post office opened my box and stole them.

She asked me to call her back and that we will resolve it. So of course I call her the next morning. (Which is Sunday morning.) She was really great. We went over what happened and what I got in the box and the condition of the box. We determined that I only got the BFL. The pink fiber is part of her business card. She sends out free samples with all her packages. I should of received 1 1/2 lbs more fiber then what I got. She is going to send me my missing fiber free of charge and make a formal complaint and claim with Canada Post.

I feel so relieved. I knew something was wrong when I saw my package. So I should be getting my new package Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm looking forward to it.

First Dye Job Reveal

In the last post I had dyed my first pot of merino fibers and I was patiently waiting for them to cool. Needless to say that was a couple days ago and I have definitely washed dried them since then. I have been painting my apartment with my best friend for the last three days so I have had no energy to post. But it is all done now so on with the spinning.

So this is what the roving looked like when it is all washed out and dried. There is quite a bit of white still but that is okay. I have learnt a few things with this first experiment.

The first is to look under the roving to see if the dye saturated all the way down. This is why there is still so much white. So note to self: make a bit more dye solution and check underneath.

The second thing I learnt is that when the roving is packaged they fold is in half lenghtwise. I was wondering why the middle was taking so long to dry. When I tried to spread it out I noticed that is was folded. So next time I dye fiber I will open it up and see if it changes anything.

That is it for this post. In the next one I will show off how this roving spun. I am also in the process of ordering more fiber with The Black Lamb so I will have more blank canvases to play with.