Channyn's Tweed

I imagine that there are people out there who devise a fiber concoction completely in their heads. "Hmmm, I'll put 2 ounces of this and 1 ounce of that and blend it all together, and bingo-bango-bongo, perfect fiber will be born." I, unfortunately, cannot develop that way. So instead, I try a little something, spin it up. Add some more of something else, remove something that I don't like, decrease the quantity on something that is nice but not in that quantity, and eventually I get perfect fiber for perfect yarn. Perfect, of course, being in the eye of the beholder. So I thought today I'd show you the evolution of yarn that we here at the house are calling "Channyn's Tweed".

I started with fiber provided by my friend Denise. She had come for a dyeing day with 10 pounds of fiber. Part of it was a lovely soft white wool, and the other was a bit harsher brown wool with some alpaca blended in, which came from a sheep she raised named Barbie. I had never tackled overdying (dying over another color) before, so my namesake's fiber was interesting. We separated it into 2 pound piles and dyed it with dark dyes - a dark blue, a maroon, a forest green. And then my friend Channyn said that she really wanted to see those dark colors blended into a tweed. So the recipe she wanted was 70% of something, and 10% each of three other colors.

This is the brown Barbie before we dyed it. It looks lighter in the picture than it looked in person. You can see it is nicely processed, which means it has been thoroughly cleaned and carded. This makes dying so much more consistent, because the dye doesn't have to fight with junk in the fleece.

This picture shows the two fibers that we were working with:

The maroon, dark blue, dark spruce green and purple are overdyed brown. Pink and aqua are dyed white Cotswold.

The dark blue is the most outstanding result, to me. We would never have gotten such a deep blue from dying white. And the purple is interesting. The brown shows through in interesting ways.

So for Channyn's Tweed, I took the maroon, the blue, the green and the purple. I used 70% maroon, and 10% each for the other colors. Channyn's inspiration was a blog called Brooklyn Tweed. This site is very interesting. If you follow their link, you can see how they create the tweed yarn that they sell. It really is quite fascinating.

Anyway, Channyn wanted a yarn that would have a dominant color and then flecks of other colors peeking through. And Channyn did not want any namby pamby bunny fiber in her yarn. I love angora, because it makes things soft, but Channyn correctly points out that you lose your intricate patterns in the bunny fluff. So, I carded up one batt of Channyn's Tweed. She's been too busy to see it in person, and I don't want to risk making fiber she doesn't like, so I can't go any further until she approves or proposes an alternate fiber recipe.

 So, the question is, will it suit Channyn? I could always blend it more by putting it through the carder a second time. Or we could choose a different dominant color. Or, we could blend a different type of fiber in. I have mohair, silk, alpaca and angora. So, we'll just have to see what Channyn says. In the meantime, here's what it looks like spun up. Personally, I think I got the whole "flecks of color" thing to work, but it will be up to Channyn to decide: