A Good Day to Dye

(with apologies to Simon Kernick, whose title I have pinched)

I've been busy with the dyepot and the microwave this afternoon. I wanted to produce a range of different colours to combine with what I already have so I can experiment with carding and spinning and plying them in different ways.

I split some merino up into 4 x 25g bits and then split them in half. Then I chucked them all in a bucket with some vinegary water to soak whereupon they all merged together into one big pile of roving. Not quite what I had planned.

Anyway these are the colours I ended up with -

I was meant to be concentrating on greens and yellows as that's what I have least of in the stash, so please tell me how the pink, purple and coral snuck in there. Like I don't have enough purple already.

When I'd done as many colours as I had prepared (there are 8 bits of roving in the photo) I still had a bit of roving left in the bucket (told you it all got mixed up) so I had a bit of fun with the dye I had left over and made this -

That's it just painted/squirted before it went in the microwave.

Here it is cooling on a chair in the garden and looking like a multicoloured chrysalis -

And here it is all rinsed and drying with its siblings -

Later in the week, or possibly next week as I won't have another day off until then, I will spin it and show you what happens.