Sunday, April 27, 2008

Less is More

It worked! I am very happy to report my experiments yesterday with Wilton's black icing dye yielded me 6 oz of very pretty roving. I found the key to the whole thing was dye quantity. This time I used about 4 toothpicks of dye to a big pot of water. When I dropped in my roving the red struck in places but not the entire piece of wool. Everything separated beautifully. I ended up leaving the entire roving in the pot set on low (4 on my stove) for 30 minutes. At that time all the color was absorbed.  Right now everything is hanging to dry. I should have pictures of some pretty fluff later today!

In the meantime I am continuing to spin up my latest Kool Aid creation which I am continuing to think of as Fruit Salad. It is green (berry blue and lemonade), red (Strawberry Kiwi and Pink Lemonade) and Yellow (2 packs lemonade). I am cycling through each color which I have predrafted to the finest I can get before it splits, which is nice because it is spinning up quickly. I am trying to see what will happen when I ply it. Since I am keeping approximately the same amount of fiber and both skeins will have come from the same roving I am hoping to keep the color changes approximately together in the ply. Its hard to explain. Once I am done I will post pictures. 

Yesterday I also ventured up to the LYS and finally bought "big girl" dye. After locating some used crock pots at yard sales I am ready for my first foray into dying outside the kitchen. I have all the supplies and may throw 4 oz in today if I can just decide on what color. Of course, soon this will all catch up as I have all kinds of dyed roving just waiting to be spun, which I then need to knit. Sigh. So many projects, so little time. 

Yesterday was beautiful here in New England. It was coolish - only in the low 50s - but the sun was out which made for good outside weather. The young one spent the day playing with his neighborhood friend and got in some serious sprinkler action. We had two very soaked boys with big happy grins. They followed it up with a change of clothes and some ice cream. Is that not an ideal Spring day? 

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