Dyed embroidery wool for bodies

[gingerdun]

During his late years (died in 1983 at age 68), my father Pete Hidy was increasingly interested in dyed wool for dubbed bodies. It was available then, as today, in small skeins from embroidery shops.

Now myself 66 years old, I am investigating my father's methods, after a long period of neglect.
These three dyed yarns were acquired recently. I separate them into three or four separate strands.


Next I pull the fibers out from the stands, and mix them in the coffee grinder.


Then I cut them into smaller pieces for spinning on the Clark spinning block.


Here's a fly with one of those spun bodies in the thorax, and a wool dyed salmon pink for the abdomen.
Embroidery wool is available in an amazing variety of colors.
This fly has too much hackle, a perennial problem with my tying technique.


Hook: 14 Mustad R50-94840
Silk: Light orange
Hackle: Light rusty dun hen
Body: wool yarn dyed salmon pink
Thorax: spun body with gray, yellow and red yarns.

Lance

[Roadkill]

Nicely done fly and blending.

Instead of separating the wool strands, I simply cut off the yarns in small pieces (usually 1/2-3/4 inch) into a blender or coffee mill and then turn it on to mix the colors, noting how much I use of each color to get the blend I want. Then you have the dubbing ready to use.

[letumgo]

Lance - Marvelous images. I love how you have captured the texture of the wool, dubbing, and dubbing brush. Beautiful blend of colors. I am fascinated by these sorts of posts. Great stuff!

[Mataura mayfly]

Lance, great photographic "tutorial" and a great way to get some nice dubbing blends.
I am going to have to get myself one of those coffee grinders for they tying shop as I do not like the chances of commandeering the kitchen one and it looks quicker than teasing the wool out with an old toothbrush the way I do it now.

[ashley]

Thanks for the great tutorial, the pictures round it of by being of such high quality. I will have to try some blending myself, I can get the wool from the shop 300 yards from my house. Got the blender already.

[gingerdun]

Wow, quick responses, with good little tips.

Roadkill, the idea of just cutting the strands into varying lengths and then letting the blender do the work of separating the fibers never occurred to me. I'll try it. The way I get the shorter fibers, I take the blended "birds nest" tangle, scrunch it into a little ball, and then chop it into about four pieces with my tying scissors. I like the random lengths that this method yields, but I could get similar results with less effort by your technique.

Jeff, why didn't I think of using an old toothbrush for teasing out the fibers of yarn? Thanks for the tip. My wife was horrified by what I was using the coffee grinder for, but she admitted that we hadn't used if for years, since we buy our beans already ground.

This new desktop scanner I got for working on the book makes the imaging a lot faster than using a camera. Like having a microscope when I crank up the resolution. I'll still keep using the camera for the more formal fly portraits.

Thanks everybody. And Ashly, I envy you living so close to the yarn shop. And your prices are probably better, since all the yarn I'm buying is imported from England.

Lance

[fflutterffly]

Love the fly ginger and I don't think the fly is to heavily hackled if that's the way you like to tie them. It's sometimes about what you like...as Mark (willowhead) use to tell me, not what others like. If you are copying someones pattern and want a perfect replications... do it. I like yours. Perfect for me, especially the thorax. Very buggy and delicious looking just ilke the whole fly.

[DUBBN]

If you are trying stay true to someone elses idea of how long or thick a hackle should be then perhaps it is too much. For me, your hackled fly is spot on.

For mixing materials I use a can of compressed air, a little plastic bag with holes put in it using my bodkin. Two short blasts and the material is mixed. I tryed to do a picture tutorial a few minutes ago. Noyt gonna happen. I haven't had my coffee yet.

Lance, I do like the use of materials and the technique you are using. Staying close to your roots is a good thing.

Keep up the good work sir.

[gingerdun]

Wayne and Ariel, thanks for the good comments and encouragement. Yes, the number of turns of hackle is definitely flexible—and for good reason, given how varied the insects are.

Anyway, I thought I'd just gang up some of these wool-bodied flies from the past few days. They are all pretty much the same materials as the earlier fly, with variations of silk color, hackle, and a few tails and wire ribbing. Hooks mostly the same Mustad R50. Just playing around.

You all surely know that you can enlarge this image by clicking on it. You can see the details better.

I haven't named any of them. The first one is a cousin to Tups, but with a wool body instead of silk, and cream hackle instead of ginger. The second fly has a one-of-a-kind freak hackle from one of my hen skins. The barbs on one side were white, and black on the other. Wish I had more of those.

I wasn't going to post all of these because the tying has so many problems, but then I thought they look interesting together. All different, but related, like a family gathering.

OK, I have to work on my syllabus now, and stop playing.

Lance

[gingerdun]

Oh, there was one more thing I meant to add about Dad's use of wool dubbing mixes. He usually mixed the dyed wool with standard dubbing furs and mohair to get more varied textures. I didn't do that here. These are all wool.

My next session I'll probably follow his example and mix the wool with hare's ear, etc.

Lance