I ordered this beautifully soft roving from Hedgehog Fibres. It’s hand-dyed 21 micron merino in the colourway Fallen. I was really drawn to the muted purple and brown tones.

My first go resulted in one overspun single. I experienced some technical difficulty (the hot weather had caused an elastic band on my wheel to disintegrate), and some frustration. However, the corkscrew, telephone cord look of it has grown on me. Another skein to add to my ‘novelty’ pile, which is by far the largest pile as far as my handspun goes!

In contrast, my second go at this roving resulted in one underspun single. I reduced the tension on my wheel and was a bit gun shy when it came to the twist. Now, if only I could settle on a happy medium!

I’ve been doing some very belated Spring-cleaning and came across these fantastic indigo-dyed fabrics that my knitting partner for life brought back for me from Togo. I’ve had them for at least seven years and have yet to find the perfect project for them. They’re so beautiful with such deep, rich colour, and hold so many memories of a dear friend being far away. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to cut into them!

They were in the back of my mind when I was in Vancouver last weekend, and inspired me to pick up a natural indigo dye kit at Maiwa Supply.

Indigo has likely been in use longer than any other dye and grows in India, China, Indonesia and South America. Dyeing with it is reminiscent of a high school chemistry experiment. You have to remove all of the oxygen from the alkaline dye bath before the indigo will penetrate the material or fibre. Then, once removed from the dye bath, the indigo reacts with the oxygen in the air and returns to blue from green.

I’ve only dyed with indigo once, as part of Julie Sinden’s natural dyeing workshop. It was like magic, seeing the indigo turn from blue to green to blue again. My shibori sampler can be seen above. Maybe the word ’sampler’ is a bit strong; I used quarters and nails to get these tie-dyed effects. Shibori is a Japanese resist dyeing technique that uses tying or stitching. It looks like the fabric from Togo was stitched to get the striping and tied for the oval pattern.

I dyed some merino rovings as well and used my drop spindle to spin and ply it. This was also a Spring-cleaning discovery. My spindle was buried beneath balls of yarn, with the plied merino waiting patiently to be wound off.

HAND/EYE magazine (a new discovery) has some great articles on West African indigo dyeing traditions; namely Benin and Mali. They also have an indigo vat recipe provided by Michele Wipplinger, founder of the Earthues natural dye shop in Seattle. More generally, Jenny Dean (author of the sadly out of print Wild Colour), has a blog devoted to the art of natural dyeing. Plenty of inspiration and tips here! You too could have a living, breathing indigo vat in your studio, or in my case, bedroom.

Until I sat down to spin these skeins, I hadn’t spun since December. December! The workshop I went to at Gemini Fibres made me feel more confident but as it turns out, that feeling was temporary. The more I read about spinning, the more complicated I convinced myself it was. In an effort to get myself back on the wheel I joined SweetGeorgia’s Fibre Club. Felicia Lo’s hand-dyed fibre and yarns are amazing – it has been fun to play around with all that colour.

The Foundation

Bluefaced Leicester in The Foundation colourway was May’s installment. As you can see, there’s a lot of, ahem, variation, in my 2-ply yarn. I can accept that. Slubby yarn is a-okay. In fact, more experienced spinners even make it intentionally.

Banana Pancakes

Superwash Merino in the Banana Pancakes colourway came in June. I hit some bumps here as well but there are fewer slubs (thick and thin bits) than in The Foundation, which I found encouraging.

Summer Twilight

Panda is a silky blend of Superwash Merino, bamboo and nylon, and came in July in the Summer Twilight colourway. This was really fun to spin – I tried a 3-ply spun from three separate singles. The slightly slippery fibre took some getting used to but I loved spinning it once I got the hang of it.

If you’d like to see what other spinners/knitters have done with SweetGeorgia fibre there’s a Flickr group, a ravelry group, and some really great spinning over on Knitty Gritty Thoughts and daisyfaye.

I signed up for the August to October club as well. I’m looking forward to more lovely fibre to practise on!

I went up to Mount Albert last weekend to take a spinning workshop at Gemini Fibres. The shop is set up in a small building on the edge of a field – a really lovely rural setting. About 65 km north of Toronto and well worth the trip! Spinner extraordinaire Wendy Whelan lead the workshop. She has a really accesible teaching style and by the end of it I definitely felt more comfortable at my wheel.

That’s me at my Lendrum, a double treadle folding wheel. The more I use it the more I love it. Gemini carries so many different types of wheels – it was a great opportunity to try some others out as well. But I really think Lendrum is perfect for learning on. It’s so simple to use – to change bobbins and to adjust the tension. And made right here in Ontario!

This is a Kromski Sonata – a beautiful mahogany wheel made in Poland. I tried it out as well. Not quite as intuitive as the Lendrum and the bobbins are more difficult to change.

Wendy covered the basics of spinning: understanding your wheel, drafting fibre, spinning and plying. This my plied yarn – I took two spun singles and reversed the twist in the fibre in order to ply them together. It seems so simple – adding twist to fibre and feeding it onto a bobbin – but there are so many things to think about and coordinate in your movements. In the end it seems like a miracle that you’ve made yarn at all!

Once I finished plying the singles together, I wound off onto this Roger Hawkins niddy noddy. I really like his design.

Et voilà! The finished skein – after it was tied nicely, and soaked and dried to set the twist. Now I just need to make a lot more so I can get started on a project with my very own handspun!