The yarn may look calm in the photo but the dyeing session was a nightmare. I opted to go with a handpainted, microwave-only approach with food dye. I spread out a couple of layers of plastic wrap, put my nice long skein on there and proceeded to pour greens and purples. First of all, I didn't mix the purple properly so I got teal at first, then teals with lumps of purple, then pale purple. Ugh, not fun picking out those lumps. Then when I lifted the bundle up to put it in the microwave, I found out the plastic was leaking!! Ahhh!! I was so flustered I didn't let the wool steep in the dye long enough, hence the pale colors.Here's what went right:
1) The skein was nice and long.
2) The dye washed out of the butcher block...and the grout...and the kitchen floor...
What to fix for next time:
1) Dissolve the dye in a small amount of water first. (I did this right last time. Don't know why I forgot!)
2) Use more plastic wrap!
3) Microwave larger skeins longer. The yarn didn't seem very hot after 4 minutes. This probably also contributed to the light colors.
Now that there's a little distance between me and the leaking dye incident, I'm growing to like this colorway. I'm giving it to a knitter friend headed off to colder winters.
I've also started spinning the green top from handpaintedyarns.com. I think something magical must have happened between my brain and my fingers since my last spinning adventure. If you recall, that produced this somewhat respectable second-skein-I-ever-spun:
When I started spinning yesterday, everything was so much easier! Drawing the fiber went more smoothly, I wasn't turning the spindle too hard, and the results are clearly more even:
So much better :) . It's so nice to know the old neurons are still firing away!
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