Category: Dyeing

This past Wednesday, I dyed some merino comb top roving. It’s 15.5 microns and is incredibly soft.

I dyed the fiber in my crockpot. I used Wilton’s icing color. This isn’t the greatest picture, but that’s how it looked when I submerged the fiber in the hot liquid…. murky. I wasn’t liking the color then, but I knew it would change after I took it out of the crockpot. I let the fiber set in the crockpot overnight and the next morning I took it out. I removed the excess water by gently wrapping the fiber in a bathtowel. Since it was raining outside, I could not hang it on the clothesline and so I hung it inside to dry. It was chilly here, so the woodstove was on, providing added heat to the room.

Guess what? I really love this color.

My only regret is that I did not dye more. However, I’ll spin this into a fingering weight yarn and use it for a small project.

I’m still spinning the bobbin of fingering weight handspun yarn… see? I’m hoping to finish it this weekend! We’ll see. My brother, sister-in-law and nephew will be in town.

Because yesterday was a cold day, I decided to make a tiny surprise for my daughter… pizza! The dough was prepped in the morning, which gave it plenty of time to rise.

This is what it looked like, right before I slid it in the oven. This is a half and half pizza; half is sausage and the other half is vegetables.

The herbs and spices were freshly ground in my 15 pound granite mortar and pestle. The ‘pizza sauce’ had been simmering for a few hours, to really add a full body flavor… and the crust was lightly seasoned with herbs. Not too much, since I did not want to overpower the pizza. After returning from picking my daughter up from school, she was welcomed with the delightful smell of a freshly made pizza!

Early this afternoon, I actually dyed some of my handspun yarn. It’s the first time I’ve dyed yarn and it’s been a LONG time since I’ve dyed anything.

I used Wilton’s Icing colors. Yep, it’s food dye!

Since I was unsure how things would go, I used some of my early handspun yarn. If you look closely, you’ll see overspun and underspun areas on the four skeins that I dyed.

This one is my favorite. It’s not a lot of handspun yarn so this might be added to the blanket that I’m planning to weave this fall.

I thought this one could have had a bit more yellow. However, it was bright and colorful, which is just the look that I was trying to achieve. This might get added to that woven blanket also.

This dyed skein was a bit more muted. My daughter said this reminded her of the Jade forest in World of Warcraft, the Pandaria area. She hasn’t played that game in months. Video games, are usually something saved for colder weather and even then play time is limited since there is so many fun things to do.

I like how the ripple effect of colors on part of this skein.

I used a variety of dyeing techniques. I used the crockpot, stovetop and the woodstove. I didn’t take pictures of them on the woodstove or the stovetop; however, I will do that the next time I dye, which might be tomorrow.

Here’s some of my merino combed top roving. It’s 17.5 microns. It’s incredibly soft.

I used the crockpot method to dye this, isn’t it pretty? The only thing left to do, is toss it into a lingerie bag and use the spin cycle ONLY on my washer. Ok… there is another step. I will be spinning this yarn, so after it’s dry, I’m turning this into a skein of supersoft handspun yarn.