Dyed in the Wool

Dyed and natural colored wool heading into the picker

All blended up and ready heading into the carder

Can you believe its December?! The main reason I can is because I just finished shipping the last of our inaugural subscription yarn club! I feel like I've been thinking about the yarn club for months. Well really for years is how long I've wanted to start one. 2020 seemed the year for something new and so be it! I'm so proud of how the first yarn club turned out. This is a dear yarn because it is the first time I have mill spun our sheep's dyed in the wool. What is "dyed in the wool" you ask, well let me explain!

This first yarn club is 100% Shetland straight off of our two white ewes, Sweet Pea and her daughter Cream Puff, and then blended with our two rams Bert & Ernie. After shearing I skirted the wool (removed all the vegetable matter, poop, and other unwanted stuff), took the wool to the mill for washing and then it was time to dye. So when I say "dyed in the wool" it is still in lock form and only has been washed. Then into the dye pots it goes! I started out just having fun with this and using up some of the older pre-mixed dyes I had in red and black. Then I kept going, dyeing up other colors that I thought would blend out well such as blues and purples. Again using dye I wanted to finish up so I could mix up fresh bottles in different colors. I slowly dyed up about 3 lbs of wool this way. Then I decided what if I just left the ram fleeces natural. One of them is mostly white and the other is a lovely blend of white and gray. So I took a little over 3 lbs of their washed fleeces and went for it.

So what happened? It's stunning! I'll admit though as it was first going into the carder I was a little concerned about how the colors were going to blend. Sitting on the carder infeed belt, they didn't look very pretty together. I was pleasantly surprised when it came off the carder and got even more excited every step of the way. The colors blended into a lovely shade of berry and the natural gray lended itself to give almost a frosty look to the yarn. And then there are little pops of the original blues, reds and purples throughout the yarn. I think it has so much depth and is truely one of a kind. Really each skein is! There are a couple skeins of this yarn available up in our online shop if you are interested in grabbing one or two for yourself. Shop here!

If you'd like to see videos on the making of this yarn, Episode 3 of the Being Ewethful podcast is up on YouTube now! Follow this link to watch the magic happen.

Thank you all for reading, for watching, and for buying from our small mill. We appreciate you all! Have a wonderful holiday season and stay healthly!!!

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Blending at the draw frame

Spinning!

Ready to be plyed

And done! I'm working on the "Hint of Autumn" pattern by Laura Aylor