Wool ... Renewable Resource?

In recent weeks there have been reports of price increases in the Australian merino market, source of most of the merino that makes it's way to local yarn shops. Drought and excessively high temperatures have reduced the number of sheep available in Australia. Merino has been bringing in high rates on the wool trade market.

We always think of wool as a renewable resource. As knitters, we are seeing the effects of a changing global weather pattern in the merino situation.

Kona Fingering Cones

I am now out of one-pound cones of Kona Fingering. Henry's Attic expects to ship cones at the end of January. We have good stock of the 8-oz skeins, though.

Kona Fingering Cones shortage

Henry's Attic is out of stock of the one-pound cones of Kona Fingering, and expects to begin shipping at the end of January. My own stock is dwindling fast, as well. If I run out of the cones for an order placed before the end of the month, I will notify you of the backorder and give you an opportunity to substitute 2 eight-ounce skeins for the one-pound cone.

Undyed Yarn Bloom

Recently a couple of customers have hesitated when choosing yarns because they think a certain yarn might be too thin. I think we need to remind ourselves about the unique qualities of the yarns in the undyed market. Most are unscoured, which means they haven't been through a hot bath, such as what they get when going through the steaming process of dyeing. At some point in the yarn preparation process, the yarn is wound by machine onto a cone. It could be a very large cone of several pounds which serves as a sort of holding station for skeining, later. All of this handling stretches the fibers and squeezes the air from between the individual fiber strands, making it appear to be thinner than it will be when it fluffs up again.

I tried an experiment the other day with the new BFL Ultra! and soaked it in hot, hot water. That's when the bloom came upon it! What I discovered is that I was more willing to try my swatch with a larger needle than I would have if I had judged from the unscoured/undyed/un-soaked state.

Bloom is a natural process that yarn just does, well ... because that's how it is. Remember that the spinning and winding processes that undyed yarns go through will compact the fibers. What makes the fibers seek their natural space within the yarn is when we apply heat. When we dye protein fibers, one of the elements used is heat. If you're not going to dye these yarns, then be sure to give them a good soak in hot water to allow them to bloom and to permit you to judge the actual diameter. Yarns from commercial manufacturers have gone through these steps on their way to becoming perfectly formed little mounds on the shelves of the yarnshop. We have to put a little elbow grease into our yarns, all a part of the creative process. I love to observe the stages of the yarn as it soaks up water, absorbs dye, rests before steaming, begins to change tones in the dyepot, as it is unveiled when the dye process is finished, and -- best of all! -- as it slides through my fingers on the needles. The knitting just goes so much faster when you're knitting with your own handdyed yarn. The aniticipation of what that next row will look like up against this row drives us.

The BFL Ultra! which I dunked in hot water is destined to become a cable sweater for little Mia, newly adopted Chinese granddaughter. It will be knit in the natural white and will look so pretty against her skin.

Please don't hesitate to experiment, and expect yarn to expand. The customer in question wanted a worsted weight which would not pill, so I suggested that the Kona Superwash might be a good choice. It is a light worsted weight, a nice firm and round yarn, and it definitely does bloom when subjected to steaming or hot water.

SALE: BFL Superwash

This yarn is a loose twist of three strands of fine Blue Faced Leicester Superwash yarn with 2,000 yards per pound, put up on a 1-lb cone ...
BFL Superwash Sale Price: $22.

I have written about this yarn a couple of months ago when I was disappointed that it was not the firm, round yarn I'd been looking for to top out the sock yarn list. It is, however, an excellent yarn for shawls. If you know anyone who is participating in one of the shawl knit-alongs, tell them about this sale!

It is natural white, of course, and of the unique and top-quality Blue Faced Leicester, but the makeup is one that will not be seen again. It was a specially manufactured for Wool2Dye4 in my search for the perfect sock yarn. (The perfect sock yarn, by the way, was found in BFL Ultra!)

When the heat of the dyebath or of a warm wash permeats the three strands, the BFL does it's natural gentle bloom into a beautiful and soft yarn -- perfect for the elegant drape of lace work, shawls, fine sweaters, baby clothes and fine gauge socks. Click on the picture to enlarge it, and you'll see what I am trying to describe about the bloom. It is a pleasure to knit with, by the way, and the BFL just slips through your fingers. I love Addi Turbo needles, and the way the yarns slides along effortlessly.

Once gone, this yarn will not be seen again. It was one of those manufacturing errors which did not give me the yarn I was searching for, but did give me a beautiful shawl / lace work / delicate yarn. Go to the website and click on ...
Fingering Yarn ... or ... Blue Faced Leicester. A great addition to your stash and at a price that you will not see again for Blue Faced Leicester!

Green BFL Ultra!

Check the picture for the previous entry to see how the greens used on the BFL Ultra! turned out. I once had a painting teacher who loved to intone a great truth about color: There is no light without dark, and there is no dark without light.

I kept his mantra in mind as a dribbled and squished and blotted and dotted color on wet white yarn. Could there be more fun for grownups?

Dye Up Some Stash!

Today I am dyeing a pound of BFL Ultra! to send to Karen Alfke, the designer who's patterns I carry on the website. She does the 2nd Nature Designs and the wonderful Unpatterns. I took a class from her at Stitches a couple of years ago and she kept pulling out green sweaters and yarns from her sample bag. She said, 'If it's green, I'm in!' and I recall thinking that one day I would dye up some green yarn and send it to her.

What better gift for a sweater knitter who loves Koigu, than BFL Ultra! -- so close in weight, but, of course, made of the luxurious and lustrous Blue Faced Leicester wool. So, that is what I am dyeing, in two 8-oz skeins which I am doing my best to make identical. I mixed up five different greens, plus two each of blue and yellow. All was going well, until at the end I decided to flick some dry dye powder over a band through the middle of the skeins. Yes, you can guess what happened ... a little too much dry powder here and there and a strange chemical reaction that may turn into 'art' as it steams. As I write, I have the big time steamer puffing away just outside the studio door, where I can get up and check the water level while the steam does it's magic. I am hoping it is magic, naturally, a sort of beautiful arty magic that I will be proud to send to Karen.

In the meantime, I thought I'd just grab those partial skeins of mystery yarn that seem to accumulate around the studio. Brilliant idea! Now I will have a little stash to add to my knitting in colors that I do not normally use. This is something I try to do when I dye a major project -- dye up a little stash with leftover dyes, sometimes mixed together, sometimes watered down to a pale shade. When I first began to dye, everything was heavily colored, deep and bright. As I have improved my technique and maybe added a little skill here and there, I find myself going for softer combinations, striving to separate delicate tones so that they do not become mud in the steaming process. Today I think I will come up with some nice bright tones. Can't wait to open all of those little colorful packages!

Website: All's Well that Ends Well

Back online, back in business. Boy, it feels like I have been let out of jail! Things got back to normal yesterday.

• Hopefully, the two new yarns will be posted within the next couple of days.
• 1. BFL Ultra! is new to the permanent lineup. (fingering weight, 3ply, superwash in Blue Faced Leicester; this is my exclusive yarn)
• 2. 50/50 blend of Tencel and superwash Merino will be added to SPECIALS page. 400 yard skeins are $10 each. Cones for handdyer suppliers,too.

Website Live-and-Learn Lessons

If you are able to read this post on this day (Dec. 11) then you know that the website is down. I have just gotten to yet another business decision, and that is to go back on my big business decision of last week! Yes, I am returning to my former webmaster, whom I have said many times that I love but who was a little busy for my own timetable. The almost-new group couldn't give me control of two pages on my site where I was able to post some SPECIALS and pictures on GALLERY pages, pages which are actually very important to me. Sometimes I get in a new yarn and post it on the SPECIALS page for two or three weeks, sell it out and people send me their comments. If the reaction is good, I add the yarn to the permanent lineup; if not, then I find another.

Right now I have a yarn to post to the SPECIALS page, and as soon as everything returns to normal ... when? oh, when? ... then I will post the 50/50 blend of tencel and superwash merino in 400 yard skeins. ($10 per skein). Also, I have the new sock weight yarn, BFL Ultra!, which I am so anxious to get out there.

I have to say that I am more upset about hurting either of these nice and talented web guys' feelings than they are about losing my business! I guess it is the Southern girl in me. We don't like to make waves!

So, the lesson today is that sometimes a business decision is not the best move for the company. That is the case today. I'm going back to my old guy, who has all the kinks worked out. Things will be better, I promise!
If you have missed out on ordering yarn in these couple of days, please wait a day or two.
Thanks so much for your patience!

Website is Off Line Today

In an earlier post, I told you how the website is being moved to a new host, new server, new webmaster. Unfortunately, Wool2Dye4 is offline for today, and the new webmaster is working furiously to get it back. This also means that email is not working. I am assured that this is a temporary business problem and that my site will be back online soon.

I am sorry for the inconvenience it causes us all!
Sheila

BFL Ultra! in Intermezzo Gloves

Here is a picture of BFL Ultra! knit up into Karen Alfke's pattern, Intermezzo Gloves. I took the liberty of adding two stitches on either side of the thumb to accommodate my square palm, and did a single crochet around the thumb opening. Great pattern for fingerless gloves!

As I was knitting this hand painted skein (shown earlier in November in comparison to the merino-tencel blend), I was struck by the luster of the yarn fibers. There is a silkiness to the look, a subtle visual enhancement -- for lack of a better word -- to this fiber. I know that I do need to come up with a clearer description of how truly lovely the BFL is to get the idea across. Words are just not adequate for this yarn.

Website Changes

Yesterday I made two big business decisions, one of which is a legal matter, the other of which is website related. An Internet business has to devote focus, energy, money, imagination to the behind-the-scenes workings if it will succeed. For me at the very basics is that my site must be colorful to catch the potential customer's eye because what I sell, really, is a pile of white stuff and white stuff doesn't look very interesting unless it is surrounded by color. The very, very basics, though, have to do with the ease with which the customer is able to see the products, make a decision to buy, and execute the purchase.

That last part is where my website has been floundering. I have written about it before, even posted notices that soon, yes! soon the site will offer true eCommerce functions, not just PayPal. We live and learn, and yesterday I moved the site to a new company with the capability of changing the payment mechanism to true eCommerce. Soon, yes! soon customers will not be forced to use PayPal, but can pay securely with any credit card. Or, they can use PayPal if they wish. For me, this brings new advantages which I sorely need -- tricks like reports of customers' purchase history by date, by product. This sounds like a simple report, but operating without it has been difficult if not impossible. Customer history will probably be my happiest moment with all of the upcoming changes.

I don't know why I took so long to make the change, except that I really like and admire my first webmaster. He is brilliant, a young man with a growing business and a growing family, and I just like the way his mind works. The only problem, was that the website didn't grow in proportion to the business growth. This was a decision from the head, not the heart.

This new company is not actually new to me. The owners and I were in a business professionals' group a few years ago. That was when I had a wallpaper shop and was operating as a contractor for my husband's commercial wallcovering business. Another life ago, it sometimes seems. One of the designers helped me develop the logo for the wallpaper business. Yesterday he heard my voice and stuck his head around the corner to say hi. What a pleasure to see him again! I asked if he was still drawing and publishing his comic strip. (He is.) The website design director is an old familiar face, too. We were in the ill-fated Italian club here in Lynchburg VA several years ago. That was the year that we pulled out all reserves and all of the Italians in town put on a huge Italian festival complete with four nights of big-name rock groups. The only problem was that one of the worst hurricanes in Virginia's history hit Central Virginia that week and uprooted tents, turned the ground into soup, and generally ruined the Italian Club's festival and finances in one fell swoop.

The new webmaster and I worked alongside other Italian American townsfolk to make the best of a terrible mess, and then we all went our separate ways. So, to see his handsome Italian face yesterday was such a welcoming sight.

I promised, back when I started the blog, not to weigh it down with too much personal reflection, and I am close to that edge as I write this morning. I just wanted to let you know that there are changes coming and from people I know, so I am expecting them to ease the site and me through the changes with few bumps in the road. This morning, when I first woke up and lay there having those stream of consciousness morning thoughts, the website quickly claimed attention, and I felt at ease about my decisions. It will be fine. I live by my gut, and it tells me I made the right decision.

Readers? You are always invited to respond to any of my written thoughts.

Dyeing Experiment: BFL Ultra & Tencel/Merino

Top Picture: Tencel/Merino on the left and BFL Ultra! on right after curing, washing, drying. Since the Tencel/Merino is a blend of a cellulose fiber (which dyes up with fiber reactive dyes) and a protein fiber (which dyes up with acid dyes), I did an experiment using both types of dyes. The two yarns on the right side are the BFL Ultra! which is a protein fiber and were dyed with acid wash dyes. (If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you will see the silky sheen in the Tencel/Merino."

The multi colored yarn on the far left (Tencel/Merino) was dyed with fiber reactive dyes, using urea as the mordant. The Tencel/Merino two-color skein, which is second from the left, was dyed with acid wash dye, using white vinegar as the mordant.
In an experiment like this, I tried to come up with dye solutions of equal intensity so that if there were a difference in dye absorption, it would show up easily. In the middle picture, the two-toned skeins are shown: BFL Ultra! in the inside curve, and Tencel/Merino in the outside curve. The turquoise did not absorb as well on the Tencel/Merino; the purple/rose absorbed about equally.

This is a picture of the BFL Ultra! before being steamed. It shows a rawness to the color absorption which disappears entirely once the skein is wrapped and steamed. BFL Ultra! takes color beautifully, blooms just a bit to make a nice, round yarn, too.

It is the Tencel/Merino blend which will require some decisions when you are ready to dye it. Looking at the top picture, you'll notice that the result for this yarn, on the far left, is a muted and lovely color combo. This skein cured for about 6 hours before being rinsed out. The fiber reactive dyes released quite a bit of color, the reds especially, but the end result was so muted and beautiful, that I might forgive the additional work required to get to the result.

The turquoise and purple skein of Tencel/Merino did not release much of the acid dye at all, and the colors were not as vibrant as with the wool yarn.

Conclusion: BFL Ultra! takes acid dye beautifully. No problem, beautiful results.
Tencel/Merino can be dyed with either acid or fiber reactive dyes. In either case, one of the fibers will not absorb the dye and the rinsing bath will show a release of dye. This yarn yields muted blends of color, very beautiful and almost shimmery in appearance.

Both yarns are available, but just not yet posted on the website. They're coming, I promise. In the meantime, email me to order:
BFL Ultra! $ 23.20 for 8 oz skein, $ 46.40 for l-lb cone (1900 yards/lb)
Tencel/Merino $10 for 400 yard skein (1650 yards/lb)

... Meanwhile, Tencel ...

... A small shipment of Tencel/merino sock weight yarn has arrived, and I am trying to get it posted on the SPECIALS page of the website. Unfortunately, there is a glitch that has prevented me from posting SPECIALS for the past three weeks (since the website migrated to a new server).

This is a trial for this yarn to see if there is a demand: $ 10.00 / skein of 400 yds. It dyes up with either acid wash or fiber reactive dyes, and there will be a release of dye into the rinse bath because 50% of the yarn will reject one of those dyes. I will post pictures of my experiment.

Until it is posted, please email me to order: info@wool2dye4.com.

Dyeing my first batch of BFL Ultra!

At last it is my turn to play, and I've rolled up my sleeves and am dyeing a skein of the new British Blue Faced Leicester, BFL Ultra! This skein soaked for an hour or so, and I am sprinkling good ole red-blue-yellow around in tiny dots. I am using slightly 'off'' shade of fuchia, colonial blue, and Italian yellow which is one of my favorite combinations (or to use a turquoise based blue for slightly more vibrant results).

The yarn is taking the dye beautifully. As I write, it is resting, but I did dye up the small sample that my British supplier sent me and it bloomed every so slightly. Remember, this is a three-ply yarn at a fingering weight, so it is already a nice round yarn, but after the dyeing/steaming/drying process the yarn comes into its own -- firm enough, yet still a luxuriously soft yarn which feels so nice against the skin.

BFL Ultra! All weighed and counted

I almost deleted the entry made yesterday afternoon, because I realize that I was showing some panic. Ah, well. Here's the weight issue, in brief:

The skeins all weigh exactly 8 oz or 8.2 oz, a difference of 25 free yards.
The cones, though, range from one pound exactly to 1 lb-6 oz, a hefty difference of 750 yards. What I have decided to do is to come up with three categories and charge a median price so that everyone will get some free yardage, and some will get even more. That is the only way I can figure out how to even out the differences. This was my webmaster's idea and I need to give him credit. So! Here are the categories for the cones:

1 lb. to 1 lb. 2 oz ........ $ 49 (1,900 yards per pounds)
1lb. 2 oz to 1 lb. 4 oz .... $55
1 lb. 4 oz to 1 lb. 6 oz ... $ 60

These undyed yarns are called 'gray goods' in the yarn world. They are spun and skeined or coned in one mill, and then they usually travel to a processor who dyes up large quantities, winds them into center pull balls or smaller skeins of 2 oz or 4 oz, and labels them with the yarn company's name. When the process is interrupted and the undyed yarns are sold as is, the weights are not exact from the mill.

Actually, this is one of the reasons that I decided to mark all of my prices at 20% off suggested retail price. I didn't want someone complaining that they were shorted half an ounce. Most of the skeins weigh in a little heavy, and I have never, ever, ever had a customer complain that they received too much yarn!

I want to keep the BFL Ultra! pricing fair and consistent, so having the three weight categories seems the best solution. This may be a problem which will work itself out in future orders from the British mill.

You may not know it, but I am from the South, and we don't like to complain a lot. Well, we do complain a lot but we apologize for doing it and then go ahead and complain in a sweet tone of voice, which is what we call 'talking Southern.' I am working with British folks who have been doing this for a couple of generations, and I want to seam myself into their operation well and get what my customers want at the same time. The trick to learning this new side of my business is doing all of this with a touch of the Southern tone of voice.

Let me know what you think of the BFL UltraI!

BFL Ultra! In stock now

It's here! BFL Ultra! is now in stock.
Just a quick reminder of the basic facts ...

BFL Ultra! is a 3-ply British Blue Faced Leicester in superwash. 1,900 yards per pound, prox. Medium twist on this yarn makes it slightly firm, yet it maintains the softness which BFL is known for, in a nice and round yarn. Great for cable work and detail. Excellent for socks. Also great for shawls, baby sweaters, fine sweaters. A strong yarn with an innate luster to it which comes through even when dyed. Designated as a rare breed by the British Wool Trade Board.

.............Prices: 8 oz skein, $23.20 .......... 1-lb cone, $46.40.
.............Email me for a sample. (info@wool2dye4.com)

It is at the end of the day of arrival, and I have just discovered that the skeins and cones are not uniformly measured. This means that a cone could weigh anywhere from 15.8 oz to lb.5 oz. Skeins are a little better, but I will have to invoice you individually for the yarn. Email me your order, I'll weigh out the yarn and invoice you through PayPal. If you are also placing an order for other yarns on the same day, I'll lump the two together when charging postage.I

Sorry for this inconvenience ... to you and to me!
Sheila

BFL Ultra! ... Due by November 20th

The wait is over for BFL Ultra! My new British Blue Faced Leicester sock yarn is due early next week. Over the weekend it will be added to the website.

BFL Ultra! is a 3-ply sock weight yarn in superwash Blue Faced Leicester, a nice round yarn that is compact but not too tightly twisted. It is packaged in one pound cones and 8-oz skeins. It is a soft yarn, yet very strong with a long staple length. 1,900 yards per pound.

One of the factors that sets the Blue Faced Leicester breed apart is that the fiber has a natural luster to it, and this is eveident both in the natural state as well as when it is dyed. BFL Ultra! will knit up into beautiful cables and detail work, fine sweaters and openwork. In Britain, BFL is preferred by manyfor Aran work.

BFL has been designated as a rare breed by the British Wool Trade Board. We have several American shepherds who are raising BFL here in the states, but this is a British Blue Faced Leicester, imported exclusively by Wool2Dye4.

For the past several years the yarn manufacturers have worked hard to establish the credibility and excellent qualities of merino wool. I believe that the American yarn market is ready for Blue Faced Leicester.

Price: $46.40 per pound cone ..............$23.20 per skein.

Tencel Yarn tryout

People are asking for some of the new fibers and I am looking for good sources all the time for bamboo, corn, and tencel. Some of them are produced as blends and I especially like merino used in the blend.

I have found a tencel/merino blend and have ordered a small amount to try out. It should arrive next week (around Thanksgiving), and will be posted on the SPECIALS page of the website. It only comes on 3-pound cones but I am going to skein up smaller amounts to try out. If enough serious dyers like it, then I will stock it fulltime.

New Book: Dyeing to Knit

A new book, Dyeing To Knit, has caught my eye and I like it enough to offer it on the website. Elaine Eskesen has written a book this is a good combination of inspiration and scientific method, and the pictures are thought provoking.

What attracted me to this book is a section on how to dye with a specific project in mind. Eskesen does a good job of differentiating between space dyeing and hand painting, something which I was glad to see since those two terms often seem to be used interchangeably. She talks about pooling of colors -- is it such a terrible thing, or could they be welcomed into our work and used to advantage? It makes no difference whether you dye with acid wash dyes, as does the author, natural dyes, Kool Aid, Easter Egg dyes, or food dyes. The bulk of the book is not about how to dye with acid wash dyes, but how to manipulate color, predict a color pattern in the fabric, how to combine some new techniques with your tried and true methods.

Her work features many examples of smooth and textured yarns used together to create new affects which color, alone, will not achieve. What I call 'visual texture,' or used to in my wallpaper shop when people would agonize over color choice and often leave with beige wallpaper. Visual interest is what gives the pop to a final knit piece!

Many of us have probably not taken advantage of incorporating more than one yarn in our final knitted pieces. I know that my own needles began to truly fly once I started knitting with my handdyes, and knitting socks out of my dyed yarn became so satisfying that I quickly became obsessed! Once I began to incorporate some Fair Isle work into the cuffs, my work stepped up a notch and became more interesting. Now, there are small handdyed yarn companies which are capitalizing on this very same concept of knitting with more than one of your handdyes at a time. They are reaching the people who don't do what you and I do, who do not invest the time and space and mess and creative juices into dyeing up a marvelous stockpile of colorful fibers.

One of the undyed yarn distributors once told me that they had received calls from several local yarn shops who were truly upset because their customers were beginning to buy handdyed yarns directly from the handdyers. Their market share was being eaten into and they didn't like it! It seems that handdyed yarns are beginning to find their own market -- on Etsy and eBay and through fiber artists' individual websites. And -- wonder of all wonders! -- many of my customers are begining to supply the local yarn shop with handdyes.

Actually, I have just taken on one LYS myself as a sort of experiment to see what my customers go through to get out a collection big and varied enough for a yarn shop owner to purchase. It is a lot of work, but the creative process suddenly shifts into another gear as I concentrate on the range of color and intensity and hue as the pile begins to grow.

Like Eskesen, the author of this new book, I look at color trends in clothing and home furnishing and, of course, yarn. At least one knitting magazine will have a color forecast each spring, you can count on it. In the wallpaper shop, I would tell people about color forecasting and how the home decorating fields follow the color trends of the clothing market by a year or so, and they always seemed amazed for some reason. I used to ask these customers to go home and open their closet doors and see if there was a majority of one color hanging there, or if there was a color pallette which they had not recognized before.

As long as I am rambling about color families, I did want to mention another color inspiration source which was sited in the latest Vogue Knitting magazine. It is the 3-in-1 Color Tool from C&T Publishing, a set of color cards similar to the paint store's swatches, but with 6 combinations for each color. I ordered one through the local quilt shop, another good source for color forecasting, by the way.

Dyeing to Knit by Elaine Eskesen is listed on my website for $22.