Catskill Mountain Fibers

Posts Tagged ‘wool’

There is a second Nor-easter moving into our area this morning. Unusual for snow threats to be issued in mid October. I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised since we had such a cool, dreary summer. There had been reports that we’d have a mild winter here in the northeastern USA, but I doubt that so we’re preparing – having extra pellets delivered soon.

I’ve dyed up a pound of milk protein fiber in the Painted Desert color-way and will rinse and finish that up this morning. I also put wool into six Ball jars, added dyes and popped them all into the oven in a water bath to heat activate the dyes last evening. That all needs to be rinsed and then put on the rack in front of the pellet stove to dry. I hope to be able to start spinning some of it this evening.  I’ll be making items for raffles for a charity event that my aunt is helping to organize.  I’m thinking of some colorful cool hats for the event. . . maybe one hat in the colors of Poland’s flag.  I’ll post photos of the dyed fibers later today.

Just wanted to say that even though the package was damaged quite badly it was complete. I weighed the opened bag of locks and found they weighed 2.5 pounds. I had only ordered 2 – Bonus!

I haven’t opened the plastic bag containing the 20 pounds of wool yet. The bag has expanded to its limits though, and is HUGE!  If I were to open it all of the wool would pretty much pour out of the bag!  Lots of spinning & dyeing in the very near future.

I didn’t realize that the box of wool that arrived from The Sheep Shed Studio had been damaged in transit. Turns out while it was in Jersey City they had to reassemble and tape the box up. I thought that the colored locks looked a bit short and will weigh them later today to be sure that I got the entire 2 pounds ordered. If not, I guess I’ll have to file a claim.

I haven’t opened the 20 pound bag of wool yet. I know that when I do and the air hits it and gets sucked in it’ll expand to about 4x its size. YIKES!  There’s lots of great wool in that bundle. Bits of black, brown & blue along with tons of white.  Enough to keep me busy for some time to come.

Tomorrow son & DIL (future) are coming up to explain or apologize for the horrible accusations that son made against us way over a year and a half ago. He hasn’t spoken to us since and DH is VERY angry about it all and plans to confront our son BIG TIME. Its been haunting me all week to the point that I’ve had a few dreams about the coming confrontation and none of them have been good. I’m dreading tomorrow evening. The stress is causing me to have abdominal pains in the liver region. I’m going to eat lightly – no meats – and drink teas to try to soothe any inflammation that is present. I’m hoping that all goes well tomorrow . . . feeling sick to my stomach right now.

The post office dropped off the HUGE box of wool this morning. Its stuffed so full I can’t get the bag out of the box. I’ll have DH do it when he gets up. There’s enough there to keep me busy for quite some time. I noticed some black in there – I need some for a hat pattern I”m working out, another happy plus. I also need to spin up more white, quite thin, so that I can work the skull pattern on the top of the hat.

My dyes and whatnot are scheduled for delivery tomorrow afternoon. I have two books coming with that order that are about natural dyeing. I have a bunch of reading to do before I dive into all of the naturals that will arrive. Plants, roots & bugs for dyeing. COOL!