Fall and other colors

I went on a walk Friday before the storm blew in. I have really been neglecting my camera, and the joy that I get from taking pictures. I love getting lost in the world looking through the viewfinder. Years ago when I was taking photography classes one of the lectures was on perspective. After looking at the pictures that I took, I see a common theme, I try and fill up the whole picture with my image, I leave little room to let anything else in. No distractions, full immersion. Lately I've become very introspective, more so than my usual introverted self and I can see that in my pictures. Now the assignment I gave myself was to capture the colors of Fall.

 Once the rain arrived I moved into the Kitchen and began work on dyeing some wool with the acid dye I got. For several days I had been teasing the wool, trying to get more of the VM (vegetable matter) out to open up the wool so I could get a more even color. You would think this process would take no time at all, but for some reason it's very time consuming. To top it off my hands and wrists ache from hours of doing this.I've done a little researching on how to make a drum carder, I'm not real good at woodworking but I think I could make it work. Can you believe the metal cloth to make the carder is $45.00 a foot, it comes in 8 inch widths. To buy one it will run you at least $350.00 and to have it professionally carded is $6.00 a pound.   
 Here is my clean wool soaking in water.

Lucy girl keeping me company. She stared out the window at the wind and rain till the thunder and lightning came and scared the poor pup away.

 Chartreuse -  had one batch done and was cooling my second batch. I kept the dye from the first batch added more dye and simmered it at 200 degrees for an hour, the second batch did seem to be a bit darker.

 All my wool in the sunshine drying. I have Chartreuse, Electric Violet and Alpine Blue. I took the left over dye from the Alpine blue and added my hand spun wool. I love the lighter blue I got and this actually is what the color is suppose to look like.

 In my teasing of the wool I tried to leave some of the tight little curls.
 Another shot of the Alpine blue yarn.

Here is the rainbow art yarn before I added the silk thread.
I took the art yarn that I had spun earlier and plied it with a light grey silk thread. When I washed it the grey thread turned a little pink, I'm really happy with my first attempt.



 Before

and After. I'll think I'll ply this with silk thread like the other batch.

I think I need to take a break from Dyeing and spinning and get back to jewelry making. When I was at the Blacksmith shop with John last Saturday I saw one of the necklaces that he sells at Renaissance fairs.

Without knowing what it was I was looking at I carried it over to John and said this would look really cool with a piece of sea glass hanging down. John told me to take it home and see what I could make. OK, I said, then he told me it's a necklace made of steel,  a small piece of armor worn around your neck to keep your enemy from decapitating you.  Before I left the shop John handed me four more and said, see what you can come up with. He said he'll put some of the finished ones at the shop where he sells his creations and I could put some on Etsy.