Favourite thing on a Friday - Kid mohair and silk yarn

I have been very busy dyeing yarns.  It is hard to choose one favourite but I think today my favourite has to be the Kid Mohair and Silk Lace Weight I dyed with cochineal.  The colour is stunning.  The silk and mohair take up the dye at different rates, the mohair slurps up the colour greedily while the rather superior lace sits in the pan thinking about it.  The result is a variegated core of pale silk and darker mohair with a darker pink mohair halo. Gorgeous.  See what you think:

You can't beat natural fibres combined with natural dyes. 

Two skeins of this yarn are available in the Shearer's Girl Yarns shop, while stocks last.
Now do go and see what everyone else has chosen as their favourite thing on a friday. 

As this is a yarn post I'm also going to link up with:

Favourite thing on a Friday - logwood purple

My favourite thing this Friday has to be logwood purple.  I have been dyeing with logwood this week.  The dye comes from a tropical tree, it arrives as fine chips of wood.  I extract the dye from the chips, strain off the chips and then dye the yarn.  It is a slow process.  However the colours are amazing.  You can get a dark purple:

Or paler shades of lavender:

The camera struggles to pick up purples accurately, the colours look more blue in the photos. 

This week I make a strong dye bath and dyed a batch of purple yarns.  The next day I wanted to use the same dye bath to get lavender shades.  I lifted the lid on the dye pan and saw the liquid was no longer a lovely purple .  The dye bath had turned a nasty browny yellow - arrrgh.  Since this has happened before I knew what to do.  It annoys me that books on natural dyeing do not always warn you this can happen.  Last time I dyed with logwood and got a ghastly colour I did some frantic internet research and discovered logwood is affected by the pH value of the water.  To get lovely purples you need an alkaline pH. 

I don't understand the science but somehow how my dye bath had changed pH and was now pH5, acidic.  I dissolved some washing soda in hot water and added it to the dye bath.  Instantly the water turned purple!  I put the yarn in the dye bath but I had to add more soda as the water started going yellow again.  It is better to add small amounts of soda and keep testing the pH value until it is correct.  Of course wool is not fond of an alkali solution so it is important not to let the dye bath become too alkali.  I find pH9 gives a good colour.

The yarns I have dyed this week will be on sale at The Big Knit Show this Sunday.  There are also some yarns dyed with logwood available in my shop.

Now do go and see what everyone else has chosen for their Favourite Thing on a Friday!

Yarns I couldn't resist

I did promise to show you what  I bought at the East Sussex Guild of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers Exhibition.  Here are the gorgeous yarns I couldn't resist.

First Schoppel Wolle Crazy Zauberball:

 100g, 420m, 75%wool, 25% nylon sock yarn

 I adore the colours.  Then I saw a ball of Lang Yarns Jawoll Magic:

 100g, 400m, 75% wool, 25% nylon, sock yarn

 The funny thing was, when I saw the Crazy Zauberball, I couldn't help exclaiming  how gorgeous the colours were. A complete stranger stood next to me said 'Oh then you must have it.'  So I did!  I bought both yarns from High Weald Fibre Factory. I would link to their site but the site appears to be down at the moment.

Now, what do you think I ought to make with these new yarns?  I have one 100g ball of each.