A Busy Weekend Indeed!

After an initial run with the Beast (who really does need another name...), I discovered that he really likes to fling fiber as he processes....unfortunately I was processing Fairy Duster batts and managed to completely coat my husband's briefcase in pink fuzz. To his mortification, the poor guy was brushing pink fuzz off himself all day....anyhow, the decision was made to move the carder into the Den, which now acts as my "place of business" - well, except for the spinning and dying activities - those are still in other locations in the house.

The weekend was kicked off by delivering the little Ashford to his new home - he's acquired the nickname "Munch" and has already been put to good use. This was followed by a wave of organization...thank goodness for the Joann's Daffodil Dash sale - all plastic organizers were 50% off. I got the huge boxes (something like 30 gallon size) elsewhere...


Voila! Much better - everything all nice and tidily stored :) and I nearly got it all into boxes too...unfortunately none of my Mill End fibers fit into the boxes, so those are living under the table on top of one of the big boxes - you might be able to make out one of the bags if you look closely.



I've also got a much nicer storage setup for the shop inventory, along with a bunch of stuff for my forays into dyeworks...

Speaking of Dyeworks, the reward to myself for catching back up on inventory was to break out some dyes and play. First, I did an immersion bath for some mill end rovings...

The lesson being that I do need to stir the pot or be happy with slightly blotchy results...


Then I did up a bunch of stock solutions for handpainting...mmm merino :) The lesson here is when they say to add "a little water to form a paste" it *really is* a very *little bit* of water - I was a bit heavy handed with the first dye I mixed up and spent what seemed like an hour stirring to get the dye un-clotted and dissolved....happily, all the other dye mixing went smoothly and I managed to not turn my fingers or counters fuschia or orange :D


Believe it or not, everything does indeed fluff back up nicely once its dry - I certainly had my doubts. I need to tweak the concentrations a bit - I was not aiming for quite such a vibrant pink...the merino balls are the orange-yellow-pink one (it was supposed to be less intense so I could call it Globe Mallow, but I'll call it citrus berry sorbet instead ;) ) and the smaller pink & brownish ones on the right (the pink was supposed to be more pastel-y so I could call it Manzanita - unfortunately I'm not sure *what* to call it now) . The large vat dyed ones are the mill ends - and that colorway will be called Raspberry Truffle...I have yet to decide if I'll spin them as they are or if they will take a trip on the drum carder!