Fiber Monday - Dyeing alpaca

There isn't all that much to share this week. I've been so inundated with things that need to get done in order for the fall to run smoothly that there hasn't been a whole lot of time left over for playing with fiber. I really do function better in general if I have some time each day to make things. I haven't touched the loom in nearly two weeks because the weaving pattern I'm using is a little more complicated than I have attempted before so need enough brain space to be able do it correctly. I have no extra brain space by the end of the day, so it will have to wait a little bit longer. 

I did do some more dyeing this week. This time I wanted to try to dye some of the alpaca that a friend gave me. Everyone I had talked to about it all had the same reaction. There would be a brief pause, a sigh, and then the words, "Oh, alpaca," uttered. It is evidently a little tricky to get to take color. Knowing this, I decided to be generous in how much dye I put in. I think I was very generous because it took the dye very well. Let me show you. 

It was nearly impossible to get a decent photo showing the real color. This is kind of a khaki green color.

Here it is next to the natural color.

I still had a little dye left in the pot after the alpaca took all the color it could so I decided to do an experiment. I have some merino combed top that I swear will never end. So I pulled some of that out and threw it into the pot. It did absorb the rest of the dye. To fully appreciate this you need to see the before color down below. I love how the brighter colors resisted the dye so are still in there.

Being able to dye this a different color could encourage me to use it up. I would dye it in a different way from how I did it here. This was a total experiment and probably not the best way to dye it. 

This is the merino and the alpaca side by side. You can see how very different the colors are. These are still quite wet so I will be curious to see what they look like when they are fully dry.

I did get a little spinning done. I finished plying one skein of the Polwarth/silk that I've been working on. 

And here is what it looks like as the final piece of the gradient. I want to weave these into a shawl moving to from the dark to the mixed to the light.

I have one more skein of this to ply, but am pausing that to move to the lighter color of the fleece I've been spinning to knit socks with. I suddenly realized that we will be on vacation in not too long. A vacation which involves quite a bit of time in the car. I will want to switch between knitting and reading on the ride. I anticipate finishing the cardigan fairly soon, so want to take the sock project along with me. (Because nearly as important as having enough to read on a trip is having enough handwork to do.) In order to be able to work on it, I need that final skein of yarn. So that bit has moved to the top of the need to make list. I'll also be bringing that dyed alpaca along with my spindle so I can spin on vacation as well. I'm not sure finishing that skein is actually on my master list, though....