3rd Blogiversary

I can't believe I have been blogging for three years! Thanks to all the kind folks that have read my blog, left me comments, and inspired me through the years. It would be no fun without all of you!

Although I have been quiet, I have been busy fiber-wise. I am splitting my time spinning and reknitting Lemonade v.2. A few weeks ago I dyed some mill ends from the Sheep Shed Studio using food coloring and the oven. I prefer to dye then spin because I do not get as bored spinning colored roving as I do solid color roving. There are many tutorials of how to do this online, so I won't go into all the details. I usually use the microwave to dye but have noticed that the roving seems to get a little dry and felted (and I did not have any plastic wrap) so I decided to give the oven method a try. I wanted consistent color repeats, so I arranged the roving in the roasting pan like so...
Then I gently poured water/vinegar until the roving was just barely covered. I carefully squirted the dye on each section, smushing the roving to make sure the dye made it all the way to the bottom layer, leaving a bit of white space between to allow the colors room to spread.

(I did not take a pic during the actual dying, this just shows how the color was applied).

I covered the pan with foil, cooked for about an hour, let cool and had lovely roving ready to be spun (after it dried, of course!). The resulting roving felt much softer than my previous dying attempts, and is much easier to spin as well.

I split the roving so I could start each bobbin with the same color, so when I ply I will end up with long color repeats. I have one bobbin finished, and am about a third through the second one.

I'll tell you about Lemonade v.2 later, as I have a Wii date with my son!