Smoky Mountain Colors

Showing posts with label smoky mountain colors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smoky mountain colors. Show all posts

Friday, November 22, 2013

Dorset Batt, The Process I've Been Wanting To Share

A few months ago, Smoky Mountain Colors met a wonderful local woman who raises Dorset Sheep. We obtains one of her cleaned and processed batts and I couldn't wait to start spinning it. Here is a photo of what the batt looked like after I divided down to 4oz bundles.


As you can see it has a beautiful color, it's clean and a lot can be spun from 4oz. I've found it be airy and a little stretchy (which is fantastic for nice warm socks). Now I have to be honest and say that almost everything I spin has some silk or bamboo, or something in it to made it super soft. This is one of the few things that I have spun straight up, not blended. So with that said, I feel comfortable saying that it's a little softer that Lamb's Pride wool. If you have never used Lamb's Pride I guess it's comparable to Cascade 220 and maybe Galway.

So here is the next photo. I spin a little on the thin side, mostly fingering to sport weight. I spun this so that I could knit some socks since everyone has been telling me what great socks this fiber makes. :-) There is about 400 yards, 2-ply.



So my next step is to dye see how this yarn handles dye. I have changed the dyes I use and this gave me an opportunity to try out my new "goodies." Needless to say I was pretty excited about both learning how the new dye worked and seeing how the Dorset took the color. Let me insert a little side story, when I first started dyeing I did a colorway that I loved but sold it. So I've been looking forward to dyeing it again, and this was my opportunity. There is nothing like bright reds and yellows blending into a clean crisp orange, then that fading and then adding a touch of green and lightening it up to a lime so it will the blend into the color pattern. So here are my results.

 
Two days ago I started the socks and will have photos for you when they are finished so you can see how they look.
 
 

Friday, October 11, 2013

Smoky Mountain Colors Has Been Busy

It's been really exciting the past couple of months. I can't tell you how many people has encouraged us and are behind us in this new venture. We recently had a booth at the Old Mill Heritage Days in Pigeon Forge, TN. (9/28/13). It was great. Wonderful sells, good feedback and lots of connections. It was a start, a great start. Below are a few of our set up photos. I am so grateful that Karen was there too. We have both been so busy it was wonderful to spend the day with her. People were starting to come up to the booth so I didn't get photos of the finial set up, but you all get the idea. :-)




 

Now we are listing like crazy some of our new dyed and handspun yarns. The leaves are changing here in the Great Smoky Mountains and it's so inspirational. So keep an eye out for some really new colorways! Come and visit us at Smoky Mountain Colors.