(Almost) Instant Gratification

One weekend in May I was so annoyed after spending the better part of the day doing school related work that I needed a quick dye project to lift my spirits. So I got out some yellow Easter egg dye tablets and some orange and red KoolAid to dye a skein of yarn and a braid of fibre. Now yellow, orange and light red are usually not my colours, but

1. that is in fact the reason why I have a good collection of yellow and orange dye tablets by now.

2. the same is true for orange and light red KoolAid (it's not available where I live - but some awesome ravelers that I had the pleasure to exchange swap packages with have been so kind as to send me some in the past... the blues, greens and darker shades usually get used up fairly quickly).

3. I had a feeling that I should dye something fiery.

I started out by dyeing both yarn and fibre a light yellow using Easter egg dyes. Then I put the yarn into a casserole dish and sprinkled it randomly with orange, and red KoolAid. Wrapped it in oven proof plastic wrap and popped into the oven at 90°C for about an hour. 

The braid stayed in the dye pot, just covered with wather and I added dissolved KoolAid in certain spots.

I was quite happy with the yarn after rinsing and drying - and my 7 yo immediately fell in love, with it, too.

The fibre braid on the other hand seemed to be missing something. The yellow splotches didn't work for me, and the rest was too bright overall for my taste. 

So it went back into the dye pot, and I added some cyan coloured Easter egg dye here and there in an attempt to cover up the yellow and mute the overall brightness ... which to a certain degree dispersed throughout the dyebath. 

The result is simply stunning! It reminds me of verdigris on copper - I truly love it, and can't wait to spin it up (once my wheel is clear of an older project that has been lingering there for far too long).

A Kiwi to dye for...

So I got myself a spinning wheel.

I loved drop spindling (I still do in fact!), but at one point I felt the need for speed... We became friends quickly, and now we'll celebrate our second anniversary in November. We started out spinning our way through fibre samples, and eventually came to the point where we dared tackle pretty braids like this one (Malabrigo Nube - Posión)...

... which we transformed into this yarn, that is still waiting to be knit up. This was the first time I intentionally used the method known as "fractal spinning".

Soon after I got my Kiwi I also felt the urge to dye fibre braids (and, to a slighlty lesser degree, yarns). So far, I've tried Easter egg dyes, Kool Aid and plant dyes. I have kettle dyed and hand painted both fibre braids and skeins of yarn, I have even tried ice dyeing. Oh, let me just show you the ice dyeing result, since I've spun that up already.

So this was the result of my first attempt at ice dyeing. I used several colours of KoolAid for this colourful braid.

I learned a lot from that experiment, and will have to try again with some improvements to the dyeing process, but well, not too bad for a first try. When the time came to make yarn, I decided that this spotty braid called for another session of fractal spinning, and I think this pretty skein proves me right:

That tiny skein in the front were the leftovers I quickly n-plied because I didn't want to waist a single yard...

I must admit that little Kiwi did not get quite the attention I would love to give him lately, due to the fact that there is now a rampaging toddler in the house, but I feel our time will come again soon. I can't wait to spin up the pretty braids that are waiting in my fibre stash. In the meanwhile, I have been using my spindles again more often - I love taking them out to the playground when I watch my girls play and / or sleep. I am almost garantueed to attract at least a couple of kids who are eager to find out what it is I am doing (some kind of witchcraft for sure...). I am always happy to educate them ;).

Oh, and I have even had a try at making my own spindles out of chopsticks and polymer clay.

And you know what? I used them to spin the finest yarn I've ever spun! I love them, and want to make more!

Oh well, that's it for today... little one will wake up soon.