Lichen Dye

This is Lobaria pulmonaria ,  common name lungwort.  An easy to use dye plant, just simmer it in soft water (rain water will do )  and you will get a very dark brown.  Safe to use in your kitchen,  needs no mordant.  It was used as a cure for lung disease as the back of the plant resembles a lung.  At this time of the year the winter storms blow if off the trees and I gather it up.   It is slow growing and needs unpolluted air to grow and so needs to be gathered with care.
The photos show a bucket of gathered lichen drying and two of it growing in the woods.
At this time of the year I gather the lichen that is storm blown for use later

Art Yarns

Two recently made art yarns.  The purple made by spinning only Wensleydale locks into the yarn and then plying them to stablise it.  Not that slow a process as the fibre is fairly fast to prepare.
The turquoise a slower job altogether.  Firstly I need some nice long locks in the same colour way that I have some carded batts.  Then I mixed the different colours of the carded wool together and spun one fairly thick yarn which I then navajo plied attaching in  the locks .  The second lot of batts I spun finer with a lot of twist .  I then used this as the core and core spun the 3 ply yarn and tails onto the finer yarn spinning counter clockwise
These are now listed on my Etsy

https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/216270004/tail-spun-wensleydale-art-yarn-110-grams?ref=shop_home_active_1

Natural Colored Yarn Very Dark Brown

This fleece is really a dark chocolate brown.  The tips a little bleached by the sun.  I am spinning it up chunky weight as it is very lofty and has a fairly short staple.   The fleece was given to me by a friend who farms in south Donegal along with a grey one.   The grey is mostly spun and gone to the US and this is destined for Canada.  hopefully I will get enough for a sweater out of the whole fleece.   Jacob sheep are a small breed and one fleece is not a huge amount of yarn

Art Yarn Winter Moss

Just put this up on Etsy.  A slow process starting with getting some lovely locks that were about 10 inches long and plying them into a yarn spun from the same color lot with a little garnet added and then core spinning it onto more of the same base yarn.  No commercial core yarn used and all pure Wensleydale wool  220 grams and only 32 yards. I can see it as a lovely collar on a cardigan    https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/211971987/

Soaps for Christmas

I have felted these lovely soaps made by Majella from The Soap Box in bright and glittery colours.  Almost ready  gift wrapped  or you could use them to decorate your house.  They come in lots of lovely scents,  rose, aniseed, jasmine just to mention a few.  They are for sale in my Etsy Shop,  some local markets and hopefully in a new shop that is opening in Lower John Street, Sligo on December 1st.

Oero Hand Spun Jacob Yarn

The last of the fiber from this sheep.  I used the chocolate brown fiber to make Oreo a lovely dark brown yarn with white flecks and now I have used the white fiber to spin this and so got a mirror image of the first yarn white with chocolate flecks.  The skeins are a lovely white with brown flecks and are very soft for Jacob yarn.  The fleece comes from a ram belonging to a friend who lives in Mohill Co. Leitrim.  The ram now enjoys the name of Oreo after the yarn that I originally named.

Lichen Dying

More experiments with lichen.   I collected the lichen to dye this yarn off rocks and stone walls while I was in Co. Mayo in June.  Fermented in in ammonia for several months and then used it for dying.  I had high hopes for interesting colors,  but no luck!!  The slightly darker skein is one that I had used chrome as a mordant but there was little difference . The wool is a pleasant tan color after several months wait.  Maybe I collected the wrong lichen 

Fiber Club Fiber Stash

I have included a fber club on my Etsy.  You can choose from 3 options.  Hand dyed batts in a single color,  natural colored batts from different sheep or alpaca,  these give you great experience  in different textures of wool,   or mixed colored hand dyed batts.  The listing is for 4 months and at the beginning of each month I ship out 120 grams of fiber.   All is as usual totally hand made by me.  They are listed on my Etsy

https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/204431693/fiber-stash-fiber-club-4-months-120?ref=shop_home_active_1

Jacob Yarn at Its best

I love this yarn,  colors made by  over dying grey and white fleece with 3 different dye pots and then blending them on my drum carder.  I kept the individual colors in large bunches so that each color shows up individually.  I just love the colors.  I have spun the yarn chunky so really most suited to hats and scarves.  Jacob fleece gives wonderful colors when over dyed ,  the grey picking up thr dye in a different shade giving more natural tones.
I have called this yarn 'Faith Healer'  after the owner of the sheep who is the seventh son of a seventh son

Tail Spun Yarn Emerald Wave

My most recent yarn.  This is spun using locks from one of my shearling sheep and then dyed.  The locks are about 10 inches long and would probably pull out another inch or so.  The yarn is chunky about 5 wpi and heavy for its length  as the locks are dense,  but it is really soft to touch and as you can see from the photos shines like silk.  Not all fleeces produce this quality of lock and very little of the fleece produces fiber of this quality .  I made 3 skeins all different weights the 100 gram one is about 28 yards long

Tail Spun Yarns

Two samples of tail spun yarn.  The dark blue/purple is core spun onto some hand spun yarn
The red is tail spun while spinning the same dye lot yarn

Yarn Samples

These are some samples I have spun for a client who has a project that needs grey Jacob and natural white yarn.  I have spun 2 different greys using Jacob fleece and then there are three whites,  pure Wensleydale, pure Jacob and Wensleydale cross Suffolk so that she can decide which she likes best.   I hope that she will find something she likes. 

Extra long Wensleydale Locks

These are extra long locks from one of my pedigree shearling sheep.  This is a sheep that has never been shorn before and as a result the wool is about 10 inches long and tapers into a natural point.  I washed the fleece and then kettle dyed it using 3 different dye colors and very little water.  I hoped that the different colors would remain more distinct but I probably had a little too much water or maybe fiber in the pot.    They do range from a dark green through to golden green with the odd reddish brown highlight  They should tail spin really well.    I have them listed on my Etsy and if they do not sell I will have a go at tail spinning myself using a core thread of Moss Green maybe using the Wensleydale X Suffolk fleece

Wild Gentian 100% Wensleydale Yarn

This is my latest yarn.   It is spun a litle finer than many of my yarns and was slow to make.  I have upped my price as a result and am now charging €20.00 per 100 grams.  I hope this is not too expensive. It is a combination of Alpine Gaywool dye and a small amount of Clematis Gaywool dye which I blended twice in my carder before spinning. More time!!  it is lovelty and soft and I made a total of 670 grams 1000 yards approx.  it is DK (13 to 14 wpi) and I have it listed on my Etsy  https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/196132257/pure-wensleydale-hand-dyed-and-handspun with a special offer if purchasing all 6 skeins

Wensleydale Fleece

This is the first of my 2014 fleece that I have washed.  It is off a shearling sheep.   That is a sheep that has never been shorn before.   This means that the fleece has had a few extra months to grow and that the tips are truely tapering as they have not been cut before.  The locks are from 9 to 10 inches long ( 24/26 centremetres ) and the wool has a lovely sheen.   Some of  the tips are a little discolored as my sheep enjoy the outside life and as a result they get muddy and as with any fleece that has only been washed there are some bits and pieces attached,  these will fall out as you work the fleece.  I wash the fleece with a soap that is used to wash livestock  for showing and so it has no harsh chemicals or bleach.  The fleece can be used for many things  dyed,  carded, combed or used as locks.   It is not matted or felted and with care waste should be miminal.
  Only a small amount of each fleece is of this standard and only last years' lambs and so fleece of this type is rare.  I am selling the best of this fleece on my Etsy
  https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/194522005/washed-wensleydale-fleece-50-grams?ref=shop_home_active_1

Yarns

Some of my more recent yarns.  These yarns are not totally repeatable but I can spin yarn using the same dyes but of course it is impossible to get exactly the same proportions and colors.  Some of the yarns that I spin I do not put up on my Etsy website and others are only there for a very short time.. 
These yarns are Savanna, Raspberry Whirl and Turquoise Gem.
   I usually only spin about 500grams or so of any color way.  Not enough for a large project ,  However I do special orders should you wish larger quantities.  For these I send a sample of the yarn before spinning the whole amount to check that the color and weight is correct.
Just email me    mary@markreewoolcraft.com

The First of the 2014 shearing Washed

I have a big order for Jacob yarn and I was just about to start phoning round to try find some when Aidan contacted me to say he had 4 fleeces.  What luck!!   I am now busy washing and drying the fleece.  I need to have enough washed to fill the order so that it is all a fairly even color before I start so that will probably take me several weeks.  At the moment I am trying to find out exactly what my client wants as jacob yarn varies from white to very dark grey

Wensleydale Cross and Jacob Yarn

The yarn for this sweater was a special order.  It took several samples before we got the right mixture of black Jacob to white Wensleydale cross Suffolk.  It would have been nice to do it all in Jacob but all the Jacob fleece I had was too black.   There is very little black in this yarn but it looks quite  grey in the photo.   It was knitted on circular needles where possible which means that there is no seam line and change of color in the body or on the arms.   It is also a finer yarn than I usually spin and it shows the cable very nicely.  It is always lovely to see my yarn in a garment and interesting to see how the colours look. 

Dyeing with Lichen 6

The end result of my dyeing with Stag's Horn Lichen (Evernia prunastri )  having dried the fermented lichen I then packed it into the end of an old pair of tights and added rain water,  our water is very hard here,  put it in the saucepan and boiled it with the yarn.  I was hoping for something a little more purple but it very definitely has a pink hue. The last photo taken inside is the closest to the colour.
  Lichen is a wonderful dye as a small amount seems to dye a lot of wool.  Here is 200 grams of yarn and I have also dyed some Wensleydale fleece and I am going to try some Galway fleece today before I throw it out.  This time there was no smell from the boiling pot,  mind you it was pretty overpowering when I took the lid off the fermenting jar in our kitchen.   As with most natural dye the colours are really soft compared to commercial colours

New Born Lamb

This is our most recent arrival immediately after being born.   A Wensleydale Cross lamb and it was far too big for an easy birth.  The yellow colouring shows that the lamb was stressed while being born.  Mind you so were we,  luckily it was in the correct position and my husband Charles is strong when it comes to pulling lambs.  All seems well now, the lamb is strong and the ewe is back on her feet but it took her a little time to recover

Twist and Shout A new Yarn

A new type of yarn for me.  Using my Spin-O-Lution wheel.  It is so versatile I can spin this yarn without changing anything except the ratio.  A slow process.  I started with a fine yarn spun in S twist,   trying to have as little spin as possible.  I then spun the second yarn in Z twist making plenty of slubs as I was spinning.
 Last stage of spinning I core spun the slub yarn onto the fine yarn using S twist and  using different methods when I spun on  the slubs.    I ended up with a rather over spun effect.   This I then gave a sharp shock to plunging it from hot to cold water and gave it a slow spin in the washing machine.  I then weighted it to set the spin but if you want it to be really springy just dry it the way it is and it will be as if spun on elastic.   

Dyeing with Lichen 5

This is the next stage of the lichen that I have soaked in ammonia in a jar for a few months.  It has sat in the window in the kitchen and I have given it regular stirs and left the top off the jar to let it breath.  It has now become a black slop.    It is out in the garden, weather permitting,  drying.  When it is totally dry I will then boil it with soft water and see what happens.   I really have no idea if this is the correct way to treat it  but I am following instructions from a friend but I am not sure if she had the same lichen.  Really difficult to find information on how to treat lichen for dyeing and even harder to work out which lichen that you have collected.
All adds to the fun!!

Lambing 2014. Pure Wensleydale Lambs

One of this year's triplets.  A lovely set of pedigree Wensleydale lambs with their Mum.   Not much chance of getting any decent wool off this lady as her lambs will have ruined it!
 So far so good Mum is managing to feed them all,  she is a sensible ewe and feeds from a hand held scoop so she can get extra nuts.   Here she is waiting in the evening for the yard gate to be opened  so she can come into the safety and warmth of the yard for the night.  I only wish all the ewes were as easy as she is.
We number all the ewes the day after they lamb and for ease of identification the twins and triplets are marked red and the singles blue

Wool Fiber for Tail Spinning

I am going to have a go at tail spinning.   I have dyed about 300 grams of wool this lovely turquoise color and separated the best locks out of the fiber and now have to have a go.  Looking at various videos I think I use the fiber I rejected as not having good enough locks to make the base yarn and spin the locks in as I go.  Very difficult to know how much of each type of fiber I need but no doubt I will learn as I go.
I am trying a few new ideas and making use of my Spin-o-lution wheel.  The great thing about it is I can spin fine or really thick yarn without changing anything except the ratio