Alpaca Granny - The everyday life of a retired teacher turned alpaca farmer and fiber addict.

Alpaca Granny - The everyday life of a retired teacher turned alpaca farmer and fiber addict.

I am a big fan of Maple's roving for spinning, having bought her alpaca roving from her Etsy shop, so I decided to check out her blog as well. As a result, I found her method of crockpot dyeing and decided to take a big step (for me) and dye my own roving. I had some white-pale ecru Blue Faced Leicester roving--nice and soft--that I've had forever, but haven't got around to spinning, because I was very bored with spinning just white, grey, or brown. So, I ran out to Tacoma's Fibers Etc. on Court C and 7th downtown (near Opera Alley--they don't have a web site, unfortunately), and bought some Jaquard dyes.

Well, it looks to be working so far. I decided to use basic colors--red, blue, yellow--so it'll be interesting to see how it all works out. The wool roving is cooling now in the crock pot, so it'll be a while before I find out how it has turned out.

I did spill a little dye on the countertop, but I found that using the Mr. Clean eraser sponge is perfect for cleaning up dyes.

I'll post the picture of the roving once it's done.

If it turns out nicely, well...I'm going to have to find a good source of Jaquard dyes. Fibers Etc., has some basic colors, but not a huge variety. i understand Lamb's Ear Yarn shop has a bigger selection of dyes, but it'd be nice not to have to travel so far as Tacoma. Of course, there's always the mail-order option.