Keeping It Green

Such a beautiful day today, crystal clear skies, pleasant temperature, and a light wispy breeze. By 9:00AM I knew I'd be spending the entire day outside. I worked a few rows of a baby blanket and decided today was not a day for knitting. Today was a day for spinning.

As I sat there spinning away, nearly finished with the current batch of fibers I've been working on, it dawned on me I was soon going to be needing another batch of fibers. Given the near perfect weather of the day I decided to do another batch of solar dyeing. This time I dyed fiber rather than yarn. I dug around in the stash and came up with nearly 5 oz of roving.


Notice how I have wound the roving into a loose haphazard ball. I did this hoping for an uneven absorption of the dye, I also stuffed the ball into the dye bath dry, for the same reason.

Here, as you can see, the fiber is "brewing" in the sun. I used foil to help intensify the heat of the sunshine. The ambient high today was 81, the temperature within the dye bath got up to 180 degrees. :o) Oh and btw...180 degrees is hot.....I burned myself.........duh. I used a paired of Joe's leather work gloves to handle the very hot glass jar but as I was pouring the roving out of the jar and into the strainer I managed to pour the hot water across the glove. I didn't realize it until the leather became saturated and a small hole in the little finger filled up with the water. OUCH!



But I guess it was worth it doncha think?

To be honest I was hoping for a little more variation in the color, next time I'll wind the ball tighter and/or do a little tie-dye technique. I can't wait to spin this up. I wonder if spinning will enhance the variations or blend them too much. Actually spinning the fiber is the only way I'll know. I am really poor at guessing what a dyed roving will look like after spinning.