Monday, February 21, 2005

What Have I Been Doing?

Well, Friday I was sick with a migraine most of the day, so not a whole heck of a lot. I did manage to finish the Experimental Single Sock Of Doom. I feel like I completely understand sock construction now so next time I'll make two. I'll also do more than an inch of ribbing at the top because this is one droopy sock. haha.

I still don't have a photo of the Kittyville hat because SOMEONE (Julia) didn't take one for me yet like she promised she would. I am now working on item #3 from the list of things which must me finished. In case you forgot that's Julia's big black poncho. Unfortunately it is really boring to look at right now so you don't get a pic of that.

Spinning
Early on Saturday I plied my second skein of yarn. It is white and a little more poofy than I'd like it to be, but oh well...still learning and all that stuff.

Sunday I played around with the Kool-Aid dyeing some roving. It went pretty well. FYI those 13 cup giant disposable food container deals work GREAT for this. I just put the roving in a big pot with some lukewarm water and a little soap till it was totally soaked. While it was soaking I mixed up the koolaid colors. (one envelope of mix per ounce of wool in a disposable plastic cup of lukewarm water) Then, I put the wool in the plastic containers, poured the color over the wool, and stuck the lids on with three sides pressed down and one left up for venting. One container at a time I zapped it in the microwave for two minutes, let it rest one minute, then zapped two more minutes and took it out.
So here it is cooling on the stovetop after the zapping:

Once it was cool to room temperature, I blotted it as dry as possible by rolling it up in towels then hung it to dry in my bathroom. This morning it looked like this:

All together there is about 5 ounces. I plan to spin it together and ply it with another single of the natural color Jacob wool like the skein in the middle there.
So yeah..that is all the news today.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Those colors are absolutely fabulous! Have you ever used kool aid as dye before? Would you do it again?

-- Secret Pal

Elabeth said...

I had never dyed yarn with koolaid before, but oddly enough I did dye somoeone's hair with it once. It's pretty much the same process except since you can't stick someone's head in the microwave you have to wrap the hair in saran wrap and blow a dryer on it for about 30 minutes. Of course it also dyed the person's scalp for a few days. haha.
I'd totally do it again. (with yarn or roving, not with a person's hair..that dryer got heavy!) It wasn't messy, didn't stink too bad, cost less than a dollar, and I got decent results. Of course the color choice is limited, but that is where that color class I took back in college comes in handy.

jen said...

Nice! Can't wait to see them! I'm a little jealous of all the spinners blogging and posting photos of cool plied yarns ... but I"m just not going to give in right now and learn how to spin (or, am I?). Anyhow -- you might want to pick up easter egg dyes on sale after easter -- similar to Kool-Aid, I think. :) Jenifer http://knittingat5337.blogdrive.com