First Silk and some other stuff

Thanks to all the helpful folks at the Spindlers yahoo group I gave my silk it's first spinning! It is mulberry silk in colorway Opal (from spinningbunny) and I have the custom dyed Targhee to match. I will ply them together once I am done. This is my first spindle full of the silk (it's a greensleeves Vixen- worked out great!)

As I was trying to take even a half decent photo of the silk (the luster makes it hard- especially with the flash) my older daughter immediately said "Take a picture of me"- so here she is in all her spaghettio glory.

I thought I'd try outside, but it was too dark already. I did manage to get a picture of some nice colors in the sky though (darn the power lines!)

And lastly- just for fun- here is a picture of my custom made Cascableles spindle. It spins like a dream- I love it and what an awesome guy Gabe is- super service.

Yeah it's been forever!

I know it has been forever since the last update......
I have new yarns that have been finished (whether they are recent or not is something else). I participated in the Spindlers yahoo group Dyeing4Spring Exchange. We had to dye 4oz of any fiber with any kind if light and wash fast dyes. I chose to dye some of the cormo fleece I have, some tussah silk, some bamboo, and some mohair with acid dyes. The bamboo didn't take much of the dyes since it is a plant fiber and truly takes fiber reactives better, but it was enough of a hint of color. There was blue, bright purple. teal green, and wood rose. I then took these and blended them on my drum carder to produce some batts which I pulled into roving. Since it was the first time ever carding and a fine fleece at that, I did end up with some neps. I kept a small bit of the roving to take a pic and to see how it spun up. Here it is- first the little roving ball and the spindle, then the bunch of fiber as it is drying.

The next picture is of the fantastic merino and kid mohair I received for the exchange from Karen C in MI.

Here are the yarns that I have finished up recently. A wonderful superwash merino in colorway Forget me not, an incredibly soft Targhee in Blueberry Patch (those are both from spinningbunny.com) some BFL spun on the spindles from the lock, my first skein of cotton- the boiled skein and also the sliver from which it was spun, a teal corrie plied with what was left of the ocean roving spun for the beaded yarn, and a skein of merino tencel that was just fabulous to spin in a colorway called Azurite.