Oh, Deer and my Adventures in Dyeing

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This morning, I came down and found the elusive "young buck" that's been wandering around the neighborhood in my front yard - right in front of my door! Of course, by the time I grabbed my camera, he'd started to wander off. (Double click the photo for a closer look...)


Then, when I went out on my deck to water my tomatoes, I looked up to find him staring back at me from the grove of trees behind my house. I've watched him grow from a young spotted fawn to an antlered young buck.


Last night, I had some fun adventures in dyeing - again, with Kool-Aid. I still haven't "grown up" enough to use the real stuff...LOL!

This time, I tried dyeing some sport weight Merino/Silk. I used two colors of blue - "Berry Blue" and "Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade". I love the summery color of blue that these two produced. I tried to alternate between the two colors and varied the saturation to add subtle color variations to the skein.










After I finished dyeing the skein, I wrapped it and put it in a pie plate to "nuke" it in the microwave. "Nuke" for 2 minutes, rest for 2 minutes and repeat. The remaining water appeared to be clear.












I then washed the skein. And washed it again. And again. STILL I ended up with blue water! I added more vinegar, soaked it again, and STILL blue water!





I re-wrapped the skein and performed the "nuking" process again. Once again, I washed it...and washed again...and again...and again. There's still a faint bit of blue in the water! UGH!!!! I just can't seem to get ALL of the excess dye out of the yarn....and it's not like it's saturated! I've never had this problem before. I wonder if it's because of the silk? Previously, I'd dyed 100% wool and an 80/20 mix of wool and nylon. Oh, well...I'll just have to be careful with this one so I don't accidentally leave "blue" on something!

Since I was in a dyeing mood, I decided to try dyeing some roving. This time, I used "Grape". The roving is a very soft Rambouillet, but it has TONS of VM in it. I'll definitely have to clean it up a bit before spinning. (Luckily, I just got a nice set of Indigo Hound combs!)













The purple "fractured" a bit in places when I applied it to the roving, but I really like the effect - it has a nice mottled look rather than a solid purple. I like it!