Summer is Flying By!

I can't believe it has been so long since I wrote on this blog. This summer is flying by. We are seeing sun today which is a change from the rainy days we have been having this month. I am not going to process anymore of my wool. It is now time to send the rest to the mill and it will come back in beautiful roving all ready to spin. I am going to continue to do some dyeing though. I have a beautiful silver fleece I want to dye royal blue. The yarn from this wool will be for a sweater for me. That is a project for after Christmas. I have to start thinking about knitting Christmas presents now since I have 5 children, 4 step children and all together 13 grandchildren. Just thinking about this makes my fingers hurt lol. I am still working on my pie shawl and also knitting lace scarves hoping they will sell at a weekend gathering I am attending in September.
The wild fruit in my yard is growing like crazy and I have been taking time to can jams and jellies. It is a lot of fun. Blackberries are ready to pick right now and should last a few weeks. Then it will be time for the apples and pears. Boy, I am so busy how will I ever fit in a job. Well, back to my knitting. Enjoy the rest of your summer!!!! Anne
Check out my website at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

Painted roving with Easter Egg dye tablets

Today was a pretty dreary and rainy day. Just perfect to spend time in the kitchen dyeing wool. If you have read this blog before you know that now and then I like to use easter egg dyes to dye my fibers. I usually do this in canning jars but today I wanted to see how this dye would paint roving. I didn't actually paint the roving this time, I sprayed the roving. Let me give you the steps.

1. Use empty dish soap bottles (or something similar)

2. Put 3 or 4 tablets of the dye in each bottle.

I used 4 blue in one bottle and 4 red in the other bottle

3. Fill the bottle with a vinegar/water blend and let sit until the tablets are dissolved.

I use 1 part vinegar to 2 parts water

4. While you wait for the tablets, wet your roving but make sure it isn't soaked and place in a baking dish going up and down the length of the dish. You can keep layering until the dish is full.

See picture.

5. Gently squeeze the dye onto the layered roving making stripes. Do one color and then fill in the non colored areas with your second color dye. You may use as many colors as you like.

6. Gently pat down the wool to make sure there is no white showing.

7. Place baking dish in a 300 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

You may use a microwave if your baking dish is small enough

8. Turn off the oven but keep the baking dish in the oven until it cools. When you take it out you can let it stand a bit longer until it is fully cooled. The dye really gets soaked in during this time.
Since I didn't have to use my oven tonight for dinner, I just let the roving stay in there until early this evening.

9. Rinse and set out to dry.

When I finish rinsing my fiber I spin it out in the washer. It takes much of the liquid out and the fiber dries much faster.

I have to say I am very pleased at how this came out. I believe this would work for yarn also. That will be my next experiment. I can't wait for this roving to dry so I can spin it up. I may ply it with something different. I will post pictures when it is spun. Happy Dyeing!!!!! Anne

Check out my website at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

First Shawl Finished.....Hooray!

Wow, I can't believe it has been so long since I posted. I have been so busy here at Emerald Hill. As you know I have been working on 2 shawls and last Friday I finally finished one. I love it. I blocked it yesterday outside in the warm breeze. It wasn't very comfortable standing out there in the glaring sun but I just had to get it done so I could post pictures. The pattern I used is the Mohana shawl by Monika Steinbauer. I did change the edging though because I couldn't quite understand how to do the picot edge so I added a couple of rows of my own and then did a crochet bind off. I like how it came out. I don't believe I will ever be able to get the color the same. It was a dye experience.

The past week I have been out almost daily picking the wild blackberries in the yard and then cooking with them so I haven't had a lot of time to knit on the pie shawl. I have never seen this amount of fruit in my yard. The vines are growing everywhere. I have made jam, pies and muffins. Today I will make jelly from just the juice of the berries. I can't eat berries with the seeds so this batch is for me. After extracting the juice from the blackberries and storing it in the fridge for my jelly making I added some water and vinegar to what was left in the pan and then some wool to see if it would dye the wool. I heated it and then left it overnight. Unfortunatley most of the color stayed in the water and the wool was a very very light raspberry. Maybe if I had added more juice it would have taken better but I think I would rather have the jelly. I started washing fiber again and it is now sitting in tubs in the kitchen. I sure do keep busy but somehow I always manage to find time to knit. Anne

Check out my website at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

I hope everyone has a great day today. My daughter and 2 of my gradnchildren including the new baby are coming over for a cook-out. Her husband has to work and my husband is on call so we have to stay close to home. I won't get to see the fireworks because the baby can't go (too loud for him). I volunteered to stay home with him so my daughter can bring her 8 yr old son to see them. I really don't mind at all staying home with JJ. He is only 6 weeks old and growing so fast. I just want to spend as much time with him as I can.
I hope to find some time to work on my Mohana shawl today. I have some weeding of my flower garden to do and I am back to washing fiber again and today is a beautiful sunny day just right for drying wool on the screens.
I still have some fiber for sale at the website. I have been spending so much time knitting I have been neglecting the fiber and my spinning. I have some beautiful red/violet wool I want to blend with some white and spin up. I am also thinking about doing a rainbow blend to spin fine and then use for a lace shawl. So much to do and never enough time. I need more hands or another me. I must make a list and prioritize. Of course I never do that. Well, I am off to get the day started. Have a Wonderful Fourth!!!! Anne

Check out my website at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

Remember that beautiful pinkish yarn I posted recently? Well, I found a project for it already. Because I only get one clue a week with the mystery shawl, I had to find another knitting project to do in between the clues. With the help of my friend Cindy, I found a wonderful lace shawl pattern to try. This is a triangular shawl named the Mohana Shawl and the designer is Monika Steinbauer. After knittng the first chart I got very confused being this was so new to me. I couldn't find anyone to ask ( none of my friends were home) so I wrote to Monika herself. She was so helpful. She couldn't believe I was taking this on as a new lace knitter. I have found that after she explained what I needed to do I was ok and the shawl is coming out just beautiful. Thank you Monika.

I found this free pattern on ravelry.com. If you haven't joined Ravelry and you love to knit or crochet please join. It is a wonderful place for patterns and to be in touch with others who love the craft. I will post another picture after I get a little more done. Anne

Check out my website at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

The past couple of weeks have been so very busy here at home. I have been spending every free minute knitting. As you know from my last post I started my first lace shawl. I finished the second clue the beginning of this past week and am now on the third clue. I was finally able to get a picture of the second section(clue 2,chart C). I will post a picture each time I finish a clue. This is so much fun. Anne

Check out my website at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

Finished the first shawl clue!

Wow, that was fast. When I decided to do this mystery shawl KAL, I was afraid I would get left behind because I have never done a KAL or even knit lace before. I got up early this morning and couldn't wait to get started. Starting was a little slow. I had to cast on 9 stitches and work them on 3 double pointed needles. Firs time the stitches got twisted and I had to pull them out. Second time I tried 2 circular needles but it just didn't feel right to me. Third and last time, I used 2 double pointed needles and nothing got twisted. I had to increase on the second row and by the third row I was able to add the third needle. I finished all the rows including the first chart. Now I must wait another week for the next clue.I have a funny feeling that it will take longer and longer to finish each section but I am going to try to keep up with everyone. I am posting pics of the yarn I am using which is my cormo/border leicester handspun wool, my swatches and my first section of the shawl. I will post more pics as the shawl grows. Enjoy your weekend! Anne

Check out my website at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

Relief from the Heat

Finally after 4 days of 90 degree weather, it has cooled off. I certainly couldn't do much with wool during this heat wave. I did get a little spinning done in the air conditioning. I am spinning that fiber shown in the picture here at the blog. It is a romney fleece that I had dyed with red and black to see what would happen. I ended up with a dark pink and light lavender. I blended it with white and boy did it come out nice. there are more pictures at my website's blog
http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html.
The fiber is spinning up very fine. I haven't decided what to do with it yet. I really like it so I may keep it. Here are the pics. Have a great day! Anne

Swatches are done!

Today I knit my swatches for the Mystery shawl I am going to knit starting the 14th of June. I used 3 different needle sizes to see which one I would like the best. I like the swatch done with size 7 needles the best. The 3 are now being blocked and I will take them to a friend's store and ask her opinion. Then I can buy the right sized circular needle while I am there.
This will be my first KAL (Knit-A-Long)and my first lace shawl. I am very excited about doing it. I just hope I can keep up. I am using some of my handspun cormo/border leicester yarn. I love this yarn and I knew I wanted to do something special with it. Now I am and this shawl is for me. I will add pics of the swatches after they finish being blocked and pics of the yarn I am using. Anne

Check out my website at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

Dyeing Wool with Egg Color Dyes

The question of natural dyes had come up at one of the yahoo groups I belong to. I told the group that I sometimes use egg coloring dyes. This is a very safe way to dye wool especially if you are dyeing wool with your children. When I had my junior spinning group we would have dyeing days where the girls would bring their wool and I taught them how to dye. We used the egg colors and the wool came out beautiful. Today I had to custom dye some wool for a customer so I thought since all my dye stuff was already out why not do some egg color dyeing and take pictures of the process to share.

I usually use canning jars when I dye with these dyes but you can use your dye pot for larger quantities.

Step 1: Take a one gallon jug and fill it about 1/4 of the way with vinegar. Fill the remainder of the jug with water.

Step 2: Fill your canning jars about half way with this water/vinegar solution.

Step 3: Add 1 tablet of the color per 1 oz of wool to the jars. I used 4 tablets for 4 ozs of wool. (See picture 1)

Step 4: Add wet wool to the jar until it is full. Top off with the solution. (See picture 2)

Step 5: Place jars into a large pot, add water and bring to a boil. reduce heat and simmer about 20 mins. (See picture 3)

Step 6: Let the jars cool before taking out the wool Then rinse the wool in warm water to remove any left over dye.

Step 7: Place wool on a screen to dry. You will have a rainbow of color drying in the sun. (See Pictures 4 and 5)

One of the great things about this kind of dyeing is it is so easy and not messy at all. You can make different colors by ading different tablets. I dyed up some wool using 2 purple and 2 red and got a rasberry like color. I put a green, yellow, orange in a jar and got a khaki color. I used 2 yellow and a green and got a light green. There are so many combinations you can try.

You may wonder if the color will last. Well, I had made a jumper for my daughter back when I discovered all this and she wore it for a long time. The color may have faded a little but no more than any clothing you would buy in a store. I think it depends on how you clean it.

All these fibers will be availale for sale at my website below. Have a great day! Anne

Check out my website at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

Lovely Romney Fiber!

After a few weeks of washing and dyeing wool. I am taking a break from that step of fiber processing. It is probably a good thing because the oak trees are now shedding these long stringy things and they get stuck in everything. There are so many this year that they get all bunched up and look like tumble weeds rolling around in the wind. I had some wool outside drying and it took forever to pick all that stuff out. In the picture you can see that they got a piece of my wool. i think I will wait untill they are all off the tree and gone before I do anymore washing and drying.

I am now picking,blending and carding wool. The picture is of a basket of picked and blended white and dyed romney. This is such a lovely fleece. I bought it from a friend of mine at the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival. I am planning on getting more from her soon.

I do like this picking and blending step because I get to handle the fibers and be creative with the blending of colors. It takes time but it is worth it in the end. This step will probably be easier with a picker but for now I just sit and pick while I watch TV or listen to music. Sometimes I just enjoy the quiet or listen to the birds.

I have seen so many different kinds of birds this year. I am not sure if I just wasn't paying attention before or if they are just starting to come around. I keep trying to get pictures of them. Sometimes I am successful and other times I am not.

I love taking pictures and will share many here at my blog and also at my website.

Time to get back to my picking and blending! Anne

No More Washing

Even though I took a day off yesterday and had fun buying beads and things for my jewelry making, I went right back to the job of washing wool again today. I think it is time for me to stop. This next batch of white wool is just too hard to get clean. I have deicded to let what i have washed today dry and send it to the mill to be washed and made into roving. I have a ton of white and dyed wool to start working with and I am anxious to get to that. So for now I am done washing the white wool. Starting tomorrow I will be washing the rest of the natural dark fleeces and then I will be done for awhile. Next step,picking, carding and blending. Have a great Day! Anne

Still Washing and Dyeing

Even though today was prom day, I was still able to continue to wash and dye wool between all the running around. I am still working on the white and cream colored wool and when that is finished I will go to the natural dark colors.

I have been dyeing quite a bit of the white fiber but there is still plenty that is just natural white.

I bought some new dyes and I am dyeing wool in blues and lavenders and mixes of those colors. I cannot believe how much I have gotten dyed so far. I have all these zip loc bags full of color. Soon it will be time for the next step. Stay Tuned!!!!

Great Day to Wash Wool

Well, I have decided that I am not going to try and process anymore of this mohair. The first fleece came out ok and I was able to dye it some great colors but this second fleece is so full of stuff, I just don't want to deal with it. Thank goodness for Zeilinger Woolen Mill in Frankenmuth, MI. They have processed much of my fiber over the years when i didn't have time to do it myself and even when the fiber was full of hay and chaffe the fiber would come back awesome for spinning. I am being pretty picky about fiber so I can process it myself now.
Today I went back to processing wool. My favorite fiber to process. The day was perfect for washing and drying wool. Not too cold and not too hot. It was a bit windy so I had to cover the fiber with a screen so it wouldn't blow away. I washed one of the fleeces I had found from last year and boy did it come out beautiful. It appears to be a Romney wool fleece and possibly a lambs fleece. Very nice!
The second fleece I washed was huge. It looks to be a border leicester fleece or a border leicester cross of some kind because it is very wavy. I had to wash it one half at a time. Both halves are still soaking. Because the fleeces were coming out so clean and have very little vm in it I am doing the rinse in my washing machine. I think this fleece will go from the rinse water right to the dye pot. Looks like I wil be dyeing tonight.
Tomorrow is my daughter's prom but I am hoping to continue to wash fleece in between trips to the hair dresser and florist and picture taking etc etc. I can't wait to see her all dressed up. I will post a picture when I get back on here. Have a terrific weekend...........Anne

A New Member of the Family

I am very happy to report that my newest grandchild safely came into this world on May 20, 2008 at 10:20 PM. Mother and son are doing great. He is just a cutie. His name is John Jr but I am going to call him JJ. He weighed 8lbs 8.8ozs. I am thinking 8 may be his lucky number. I am thrilled and excited to finally be able to see him and hold him. What a miracle these children are. Have a wonderful day! Anne

A Day of Processing and Dyeing

It was so cold yesterday which is unusual even for New Hampshire this time of year. I had hoped for sun but I ended up with partly cloudy with a little rain. That didn't stop me though. I filled those buckets up with hot water and laundy soap and started washing the mohair. It was pretty dirty. As the fiber was sitting in the rinse bucket, I started up the dye pots. No sense in drying the mohair just to wet it again for dyeing so it went from the rinse bucket to the dye pot. See pictures! I am now pretty much out of dyes and it is time to go and buy some more. I still have one more mohair fleece to process and I might as well do it today. Then it is back to processing wool. It is still cold today but at least the sun is out. Have a wonderful Day! Anne

P.S. For more information on dyeing wool and pictures please visit my website's blog at http://emeraldshandspunhandknit.weebly.com/emerald-hill-blog.html

Welcome to Emerald Hill

Hi, this is my first time having a blog. How cool is this. This blog is all about handspinning, knitting and anything that has to do with fiber. I hope you will enjoy it.
Mother's Day weekend was the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival. I spent the entire weeekend there. A friend asked if I would help out in her commercial booth and I agreed. She let me bring some of my handspun yarn, handknit items and my newest creation, Aromatherapy for Fiber.The night before the Festival I was sitting and thinking just how could I incorporate my aromatherapy into my fiber. I came up with aromatherapy sprays. I had a blast experimenting with different essential oils finding just the right blends for what I needed. I came up with 6 different sprays. Their purpose is to repell insects and moths while having a pleasant smell. All you have to do is lightly mist the fiber whether in the fleece or yarn. I usually then let it sit a few to dry and then put the fiber/yarn in a zip-loc bag. When it comes time to work the fiber it will not only be tactally pleasant but also pleasant to your nose.
Mother's Day was my 22 yr anniversary of the first day I started spinning. I spent this special day selling at the booth, spinning and sharing my knowledge of fibers with the public. This is what I love to do. There is nothing more wonderful than the look in the eyes of children as they learn about the fascinating art of spinning. By the end of the weekend I felt renewed. I left the Festival with less yarn than I came with and 4 new beautiful fleeces.
So guess what I spent most of this week doing? You guessed it. I was washing and dyeing wool. I had a ball. My deck and driveway were covered with screens full of beautiful natural wool and bright colors of dyed wool. At this moment I have a silver fleece drying beside some wool I dyed in canning jars and some silver wool I dyed green. Dyeing silver wool is awesome. The fiber comes out heathery.