Adventures in Dyeing, part II . . .

I wasn't satisfied with the yarn I dyed with Koolaid last week, so I overdyed some of it with splotches of food coloring. I think I like it better, but I'm not sure, so I skeined it up and  put it in time out for a while. I may come back and fool with it later, and I may not. In any event, it was good practice for my first dyeing experiment.

Today's adventure may not have worked so well. I'm getting very tired of spindling only white, and wanted something with loooooog repeats, which last week's yarn won't have, alas. So I was in bed, thinking, and decided maybe the best way to get said loooooong repeats would be to dye roving. My Scots ancestors don't approve of waste (they're in the back of my head grumbling about last week's yarn, let me tell you what!), so I tried today's experiments with superwash roving. Emboldened by the success with the "free" FUO (fleece of unknown origin), I hauled out the food coloring, gloves, vinegar, superwash, and commenced.

 This first batch I dyed in three layers. The first layer black and red, the second layer red (with a little yellow to try to make orange) and the top layer a lot of yellow and some red. Well, that being said, my adventure was successful, I think, but not quite what I had planned. The roving ended up amazing colors: black, blue, red, orange, yellow, green and for pete's sake BROWN! I think I'll name it Autumn Splendour.


But learning did take place. I dyed the next lot a batch at a time. The first one black with some red, the second one red only. The black has some amazing blue spots and a little bit of red with some white left. The red is red, pale red (almost pink) and white.




The last two batches are orange and yellow, less white, and better dye adhesion. I either overdyed the first two, or did not cook them long enough. I'm afraid the FO will probably bleed dye. Not sure if it's function of dyeing superwash roving, or lack of cooking. I KNOW I used enough vinegar, the cat's still sneezing! And the kitchen smells like a pickle factory, despite the back door being open and my feeties being cold. Anyway, the last batch . . . 

 I'm really satisfied with the orange and yellow. 




I'm looking, in the finished spun yarn, for the potential for very looooong repeats with the splendid blends that noro seems to achieve. I'm thinking that control of the repeats is going to involve spindling little strands from each color to the length I want, very thin, into a cop and then repeating the process for strand two . . . and possibly strand three. That should be quite the adventure in spindling. The bad news, I don't see any way that I can Andean ply this project and end up with anything other than a nasty colored mess. The good news, I broke down and ordered a Jumbo Kate from Nancy's Knit Knacks, which shipped yesterday. So hopefully it arrives before I get disgusted with the project I've set myself.


The RUO I dyed the other day with food coloring in the microwave is spindling wonderfully. The repeats are everything I wanted, quite by accident I might add, and the yarn is looking wonderful. I'm not sure what it will be like when it's plied. More about that later.

Yarns to dye for . . .

well, maybe, and maybe not. I'll have to see how they knit up to know whether or not I like the colors the way I dyed them. However, I adored the process. The kitchen, and my hands, smell of kool-aid and vinegar. And so, alas, does the wool. But I think that as a first attempt, I would consider it a success.

Picture of the first batch, microwave dyed, below.

The colors are not as bright in the picture as the yarn really is . . . darn it, but I'm pleased with the result.


The yarn, soaked in vinegar water, accepted the dyes beautifully. I did the first batch in the microwave, the second batch in mason jars set in a water bath on the stove, and then got really ambitious and dyed some roving I inherited with the last two spindles I bought with food coloring. I was a little alarmed about it, as I was afraid it would felt, but it's drying rather quickly and doesn't appear -- so far -- to have felted, so apparently I did something right!





Dyed roving .  . . 

And the yarn as it is right now, on the fabulous Cascade spindle . . .

The blues don't show up as well in this picture. I'm soooo excited about plying and finishing this project. There's still most of a gallon bag of roving to spindle . . .

Here there be yarn . . .

So I've been spinning. Actually, spindling. And knitting with energized yarn I plied, but that's different story. When I get disgusted, in fact, with the energized yarn, if it's slow at work, I pull out the spindles and some roving and have at it. And in fact, this Saturday and Sunday it was regularly paced enough that I spun several ounces of wool roving.

Since the last time I posted, my spindling has improved. I have gone from evil dreads that ultimately graced the trash pail to some acceptable thick and thin that plies well and looks "homespun" to some really nice, consistent thickness of yarn. The wool roving is quite a bit stickier than the superwash I started with, and today, I finally succeeded in doing some actual long drafting. I was impressed with myself.

I wound everything off on a too small niddy noddy, and then went to my favorite source for all things video, YouTube, and found a wonderful video about making an Andean bracelet for plying. With computer in front of me, video playing, I made the Andean bracelet, and used the cheaper than cheap, poorly balanced plying horse spindle (named Buffy because I sharpened the bottom with the pencil sharpener, and it would kill any good sized vampire with a great quickness!). The yarn plied like a dream, and is really well balanced. I finished it, and it's dry.

The second skein turned out to be a monster in size. There was absolutely no way to tie two balls of yarn together and make an andean bracelet. So Buffy and I got quite the workout and darn it, the balls were of uneven length, so I andean plied what was left on the second ball into a third skein.

Tomorrow . . . adventures in dying yarn with food coloring and kool-aid . . .