Be Picky and Dye

I spent a great deal of time picking wool over the weekend.  It works both ways - by saving me from a psychotic episode due to job stress, but driving me to distraction from all the bits of hay, manure (tags in sheep lingo) and burdock.  Lots of burdock.  (In New Jersey it was simply burrs - in upstate NY it's burdock).  My washer and dye stove have been working over time.  I did surrender it last evening so we could have clean clothes to go to work.  Oh, yes, work.  It's that thing that some of us don't want to think about, or talk about, but covers all that hay the aforesaid sheep like to eat.  And oh, can they eat.  Now it is time to make the sheep pay for their fat bellies by giving up their wool.  I need to get Jim Baldwin back one more time to do the sheep and goats he didn't get last time.  Warm weather plus hairy, sweaty sheep equals felt!  Better come quick, Jim!  I've been dyeing my black fleeces purple.  I adore natural colors but the customers want color, and I want the customers to stop in their tracks when they glance into my booth.  I do that with color.  The black fleeces take purple dye so nicely, with the lighter tips coming up violet and blue. I will blend this Bluefaced Leicester wool with some solid purple dyed mohair, and more mohair dyed teal and blood orange.  I'll call this run Pacifica Revisited, after the very successful Pacifica run of two years ago.  I've often thought of getting more yarn made with my fiber, but the roving is just so beautiful and can be used for spinning and felting.  People find place online to buy cheap yarn, but beautiful roving, with various colors and fibers, each with their own unique properties, keeps the fiber in a more fluid form, and is harder to find.