Mermaid - Badger Face Welsh Mountain - Torddu

Further to my post of 20th February about the Badger Face Welsh Mountain Sheep - Torddu, this post is about what I did with the "colourful" parts of the washed fleece and the small amount of hand combed fibre that I got from my purchase of just 50g of washed fleece.

The 50g of washed fleece

The 25g of combed top I got and then this top with the colourful parts from the other fleece

Obviously when I post about something that I've done, it is always after I have done it and sometimes I post in stages as I do it and other times I wait until I've completed the whole project and sometimes projects physically "cross-over" in real life, so whilst I'm waiting for something to dry I'm starting work on something else etc. In that post of 20th February I didn't mention that I had already dyed the colourful parts of the fibre when I had, in fact, dyed it on 18th February. I kept that information for this post.  I dyed it using Greener Shades Dyes in Coral Reef Aqua at a dye depth of 0.75%, so 3/4 of its usual strength, because I wanted a slightly lighter shade than usual.

I already had an idea what I wanted to do with it before I dyed it, which is partly why I dyed it that colour, plus the fact it was already slightly tinged blue from the raddle paint or whatever that the fleece had been marked with.  I wanted to make an oceanic yarn so I sorted out some ingredients in blue and green to add to it.

Top row: Colbalt Ramie, Gooseberry Merino, Peacock Angelina
Middle row: Caiprinha Trilobal Nylon, Torddu, Chlorophyll Silk Noil
Botton row: Ireland Silk Noil, Caiprinha Hemp, Harmony Merino

It was blended on 27th February and it looks really pretty like this.

It got left in a bag for a little while until I started spinning it on 16th April and I was having to thin out the small clumps of silk noil as I spun.

My finished yarn is a 2ply double knit weight and I have 112g/210m.  The final fibre count is 65.5% Badger Face Welsh Mountain Torddu, 27% Merino, 2.5% Ramie, 1.5% Trilobal Nylon (Firestar), 1.5% Silk Noil, 1% Hemp, 1% Angelina