What's a failure?

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder - but what constitutes a failure? Recently 'woofnwooly' bought some of the Exmoor Blueface from Coldharbour Mill which very kindly shared with C and myself. I am going to spin half undyed and dye and spin the other, hoping then to discover more about the fibre - K went the whole hog and kettle dyed 150grams - with unexpected results - he used rust, red, sunshine yellow and moss green and got - flame red - he then over painted with some brown and moss green and below is the result.......














Which I really like and K hates, in fact this was destined for the bin until I intervened - OK it has felted quite a bit, which is really disappointing, but there is a lot of good fibre which will be great for a warp thread (probably a cushion cover) - so what was one person's failure was another's gain.

Lesson - one - possibly Exmoor Blueface is best not kettle dyed - two - that for 150grams of fibre in 3 litres of water with 40grams of citric acid and 40 grams of salt will set the dye - three - there was no exhaust (the topic of many a rant on this blog) which is good, but no control, had this been hand-painted then we might have got some of the autumnal hues hoped for and less felted fibre.