While much of my time lately has been dyeing more skeins of Grand Old Flag and getting July Club ready, I’ve been able to dye a number of colors of Wensleydale, plus some Horn Dorset….and even Jacob and a batch of Journey sock yarn!
Plenty of Wonderful Wensleydale in gradients….most of these are in 5 oz braids to give you just a bit extra for a decent sized shawl.
On to Horn Dorset…..this is a nicely toothy wool in the down family, it has an uneven crimp so it will puff up nicely and resists felting. Great for socks or mittens or scarves.
And I have two jumbo 8 oz braids in Tropical Rainbow….one in Horn Dorset, the other in Jacob Humbug…..so fun!
And finally…..a new batch of Mississippi Mud on Journey sock yarn!!
Row boat with faded red to coral interior on water reflecting a blue sky.
I’m finding it very amusing that the color title is this, and I’m finally getting around to posting this reveal! June continues the theme of this year related to water (because we sure still have a lot of it here in the Midwest)! I changed the color sampling on this one, see your club note for my color picks….the blues are similar, but I went for the gray metal of the boat, a bit more peachy tan on the paddles, and obviously the glorious coral of the faded boat interior.
The fiber is a new one for club, Dorset Horn. It’s actually a threatened breed, as the polled (non-horn) are generally more popular for farmers. You can read more about them at the Livestock Conservancy. The wool has an irregular crimp and twist to it, which encourages loft and bounce even when spun worsted, and it resists felting. It’s a medium wool, your tolerance to itch factor will determine what you want it to be. I’m thinking socks, at which point I think I might do a combo spin on this…..tear it into much smaller pieces and grab randomly (or color ordered if you prefer), then chain ply to make stripes. You make it do what you want, you are the boss of your fiber.
Our yarn is a new version of an old favorite, Panda. This version leaves out the nylon, because really….you already have the Bamboo rayon in there. This leaves room for more wool, which lends more bounce and memory. This is also spun thinner, so there’s more yardage to play with. Finally, the skein put up is several inches more around, which gives me more options on color placement. I like it, I hope you do, too.
Tiger Sock Club is full for July, but I can still take a few fiber club members. Stop by if you are interested, Club is open through the 15th. (Kaspersky insists my club page is some sort of risk, if your antivirus says the same, I assure you it just has a bunch of PayPal buttons on it!)
Believe it or not, I have some new things for you! Grand Old Flag orders have been pouring in whenever someone shows off their socks on FB or IG, so I’ve been busy keeping up with that. I’ve got a small supply of each now, so it freed me up to get some fiber dyed!
I had a special request for more Sea Breeze on Falkland:
And then I went through my recipe pile and pulled out some favorites to dye the rest.
Dove FalklandWater Lilies FalklandFairy Ring FalklandRaspberry Mocha Falkland
To round out the update, I have some Tiger Club extras. I don’t always have extras (and clubbers get first dibs) so if you are finding you are liking this stuff…..consider signing up for Tiger Club.
Derelict Door on FinnS’more Please on Superwash CorriedaleCrazy Paisley on Jacob Humbug Receding Twilighton Alpaca Merino Silk
And here are some sock yarns……
S’more Please Stripe on Safari Sock YarnGreat Pumpkin on Tiger Tweed SockElemental Stripe on Targhee Sock
May has been one wet month here in the Midwest along the Mississippi….and we’ve had a few of these storms, where the plants take on an eerie vibrancy, and the sky is all blue and black and grey (and cheerful and white and fluffy in the middle!). It’s a great subject for our May yarn and fiber.
The yarn is an old favorite of mine, Bengal, which is a nice round 4 ply of 100% Superwash BFL. The longer fibers of the Blue Face Leicester sheep make for a sturdy, yet soft yarn. I folded the yarn and basically painted on this picture, so the color sections are shorter and repeat twice. I can’t wait to see how socks in different stitch numbers and gauges work up.
The wool is also 100% Superwash BFL. I also folded the fiber and painted on the landscape. Be sure to hold your hands a little further apart for BFL, and if you find it too slippery (superwash does that), try pulling off a chunk and spinning from the fold. This is also a good option if you want to rearrange the colors. Go ahead, I really don’t mind!!
Not in club? I have one sock spot, and a couple of fiber spots open through June 15th. Stop by and join!
Throughout April, our family had been eagerly awaiting a certain huge movie release, so a name jumped out at me when it came time to name this month’s fiber (based on the above picture of multi-colored doors). I chose to ge with four colors, a blue sky turquoise, lemony yellow, a pretty pink coral, and a purply fuschia. I allowed the colors to blend together at transitions to get all the other colors of the spectrum.
The fiber for April is Wensleydale. While many fibers have a variety of ways to be spun, Wensleydale is really happiest spun thin, in worsted technique, with lower twist and ply. If too much twist is added, it makes the ends poke out and it gets prickly. The staple length is longer, so get your hands further apart. I really love the color blending that happened on this fiber.
For the yarn this month, I’ve been experimenting with different patterns. I wanted to do a gradient over matching 50 gram skeins, but I wanted a little more variation than just the gradient. So I added a grey stripe in there, as it fit with the theme. I love playing with the tool on Planned Pooling for experiments like this. Above is my prototype.
I’m super pleased with how it turned out. The yarn is Journey, a 4 ply Superwash Merino and Nylon blend, with plenty of yardage (~460 yards), in this case split between two matching 50 gram skeins. Due to the method of winding and dyeing, there are only two matching sets in the world, each turned out a bit different. Shown is one repeat, there are 4-5 repeats per set, so you don’t have to worry about using up the whole thing to get the entire gradient. I think this would be fun as ankle socks for summer. If you used a solid for toes and heels, you might even get two pairs of ankle socks from it. (Let me know if you want a matching mini or two!)
March is a season of sunny skies and storm clouds. It seemed fitting to choose this picture from collection of ‘shelter pictures’, with the cool blue door and concrete, and the bright wall and citrus. A Tropical Delivery!
The wool is Superwash Corriedale, a great all purpose medium fine wool. I chose to dye it in a blended gradient so that you had the most options in spinning it. Please take it apart and make it do what you want. I love the way the fiber (and superwash treatment) made a natural resist and lead to more colors than I started with.
The yarn is also Superwash Corriedale wool, blended with nylon to make Safari Sock yarn. The striping pattern plays the gold and orange against the blue and grey, enlivened by a springy lime green. The sample here is a 64 stitch tube.
As you’ll see later in this post, sometimes the yarn or fiber selection leads the inspiration process. With the fiber having a high contrast, I wanted the colors to work with that. I started thinking of what would be fun with a bunch of bright colors against dark, and ran a search for Paisleys. It did not disappoint, this tie has just the vibe I was going for.
Our yarn is Titanium Tiger Twist, a two ply blend of soft superwash merino fortified with nylon and a healthy hosiery twist. I dyed the background a nice uneven kettle dyed navy blue, then worked in orange, yellow, turquoise, and pink-purple on the undyed parts. The idea is to get a reverse speckle effect. Here’s the yarn:
I was hoping to show you a completed sock, but life got in the way this week. Here’s my swatch, though….it shows you how the speckle might work up (it will vary depending on your gauge and stitch number, just like any variegated yarn).
As I said earlier, the fiber was leading the way in color decisions. I used Jacob Humbug. Jacob is the sheep below. If you remember your Bible stories, Jacob made a deal with his FIL that he could keep any spotted sheep born of the flock. Humbug is the prep of this combed top, and just means they separated the colors of wool and combed them, then made a final pass with the colors together, so they stay in bold stripes.
I kept the dark brown as the background color, then variegated bright orange, yellow, turquoise, and a pink-purple, then generously smooshed everything so that it would blend and give us greens and darker blues and yellow oranges, and even pinks where the purple split. I’m very pleased with how it turned out.
This particular Jacob wool is on the rough side of medium, so I’d suggest making something outerwear, and/or lining it with something softer. It would make a colorful hat or boot toppers, be great for mittens thrummed or lined with soft wool inside, or maybe make some potholders in your favorite fiber method…knit, weave, crochet, felt….
Thanks for being a part of February Club. Would you like to join in the fun? I have a few spots open for March, but grab yours fast….March 15th is the last day to join and I’ll start dyeing on the 16th.
It’s Fiber Friday, and I thought I’d share the latest fiber I’ve listed.
First up is the last bit of Alpaca/Merino/Silk I have, it’s a glorious 50/30/20 blend, and just shines and oozes softness. The color is Hibiscus, and it is dyed in a smooth gradient.
We’re reaching the end of February, so hopefully our weather will turn the corner. In the meantime, I have a fan favorite restocked, Twenty Below. This is hand dyed in a blended gradient (or you could call it a fade) on Targhee Bamboo Silk 80/10/10.
Another fan favorite is Jeweled, and I’ve also dyed this in a fade style gradient. This is Targhee Bamboo Silk.
And last (but not least), we can look forward to March, with Saint Patrick’s day and a Pot o’Gold at the end of a Tropical Rainbow! This is a faded or blended gradient on Targhee Bamboo Silk. I also have a new batch of Tropical Rainbow Stripe sock yarn!
Thanks for stopping by https://ThePaintedTiger.com !!
I love browsing all the color design options on Pinterest for inspiration, and I found a number of ‘shelter’ photographs I plan to do this year. This one is the first; Derelict Door is still boldly showing off its blue paint, although it is faded in places, and chipped away to show the weathered gray wood. The iron hardware shows richly brown in spots, and in others a rusty orange brown. It’s a great contrast, and a fun pop of color for the record setting cold (-33 actual, -57 windchill) and snow (~29″) of January 2019. I veered away from the ‘suggested’ colors attached to the photo, I wanted a little more contrast and ‘happy’ colors.
I’m very excited about my new fiber supplier, and this is the first of some new breeds we’ll try this year (we’ll also have some of our favorites, too!). This is Finn, which runs about 28-30 microns and average length of 80mm, a nice medium wool that does felt well. It feels softer than the microns will suggest, and has a nice bit of luster (shine) usually only found in longwools. It took dye like a champ, and I decided to do a blended (or Faded) gradient to give you the most flexibility. You can strip this down for recurring stripes, fractal, or separate the colors completely and do what you like….or keep it in order for a nice gradient. For more information on the Finn Sheep breed itself, including charming pictures (did you know they have litters of lambs?), visit the website of the FinnSheep Breeder’s Association.
I chose a self-striping pattern for the sock yarn to show the colors off to best advantage. I pulled out a favorite of mine that hasn’t made it to the shop yet, Targhee Sock. It’s a blend of 90% Superwash Targhee Wool (grown in the USA) and 10% Nylon, has a 3 ply structure, and runs about 460 yards per 4 oz skein. It puffs up marvelously, and has a nice smooth look when knitted. The wool itself has the softness of Merino, but has the sturdiness of being crossed with Lincoln. The swatch above is 64 stitches in the round.
Want to join in the fun? We’re going to have another new breed for February’s Fiber Club, and explore a little different dyeing technique than I usually do for the Sock Club. The buttons are turned on for new subscriptions, you may check out the options on the Tiger Club page of my site. Do contact me if you’d like another combination, International, or manual billing….I’m happy to accomodate.
2018 Tiger Club came to an end with “Time Marches On”. This inspiration picture brings to mind the battle between man and nature, the deep red faded into coral, the green/blue/grey lichen creeping across the face and chipping away at it.
Our fiber this month is a blend of Superwash BFL and Nylon. I dyed it in a back and forth short color method to encourage blending and barber-poling. If that isn’t what you want, you can divide the colors out, or strip the top down thinner to help preserve the colors as dyed.
For the sock yarn, I didn’t want to jumble these disparate colors all together. Fortunately, I had another option….mini skeins! I dyed sets of 5, which are equal to one full skein of our Journey sock yarn. So, you can stripe socks however you like, or use it for one of the popular shawl, cowl, blanket, or other project in the mini craze! They can also be useful as heel/toes/cuffs to stretch yarn for larger socks….the blue and grey would go well with last January’s “Shards”, and the Coral could go with Dotty Daisy from May. If you don’t mind mixing base yarns, the red could go with Jelly from February. I’m sure you have other things in your stash, as well. If you need a coordinating skein (either solid, or variegated), I’m happy to custom dye it for you.
I’m truly lucky to have all of you to dye for, and I look forward to a new year of color and wool in 2019! Want to join the fun? We have openings in all clubs.
