Today is the long-awaited end to the election season. I've voted, and am so glad to be done with all of this that I really don't care who wins. Two years of campaigning! There ought to be term limits on a campaign!

Time flies between posts, as usual. I've had a lot of fiber fun over the last several months. I spent several days in both Sept and October playing around with natural dyes. I pulled my recipes from various books, mostly relying on Trudy Van Strachen's book and was (mostly) delighted with the results.


These are various skeins of handspun shetland, in various natural colors, that I started throwing into the exhaust baths of various dyes including cochineal, and logwood. I love how many colors you can acheive by varying the mordant or the after-bath. I especially love ammonia dips, probably because I like the whole red-blue-violet spectrum.

These are the mini-skeins of Belle yarn, several dyed with cochineal, one with logwood, and one with weld. I am very happy with the results and am planning to knit these mittens with this yarn.

This very dark picture shows mini- skeins of merino lace-weight yarn dyed with Brazilwood, with a number of different mordants and afterbaths. Each skein is about 200 yds and they look beautiful together. I have no idea what I will do with them. I also managed to spend some time at the Textile Center and carded some of my Shetland-Border Leicester fleece. I spun this beautiful worsted-weight yarn that is soft and spring-y. I can't wait to get back to carding somemore of this fleece so I can really get going with the spinning.

I have been surprisingly productive with knitting and weaving for Christmas presents as well. I am well into my list of projects and may add a few more if this pace continues. I need to get pictures of the WIPs for my next post.