Spring Cleaning--and Creating!

Got busy today!  I decided to clean my office in 1/2 hour spurts, which coincidentally is the amount of time wool roving needs to cook in the crockpot.  So I thought, why not dye some roving and clean at the same time? That way I'd have a few breaks from the tedium of cleaning, yet still dedicate some solid time giving away, throwing away, and putting away stuff.  Yep, spring cleaning is here!

I am glad to say that I was productive in both ways.  No, I will not post pictures of my office/library because it still looks like a tornado went through it.  There is improvement:  now a path from door to computer desk can be seen, plus I cleared off a bookshelf and put my yarn in tubs on it.  A box of books now sits in the living room, ready to be delivered to Goodwill.

However, as you see, I am posting pictures of the roving I dyed, because it is much prettier to look at.  I may end up selling the roving or spinning it...I haven't decided yet.  It's nice, soft wool: I have one set that is purely Merino wool, so very soft; the other one is a touch coarser, but still soft and has a somewhat elastic, bouncy feel. 

The pictures don't quite do justice to the colors of the roving.  Except for the primary colored one (to the left), which is that intense in color, the others are actually a bit lighter and more pastel than they look here--very much spring colors.

It's been very wet and rainy lately--I think we've had a month of rain and clouds with perhaps half a day of real sun--so I was feeling very much as if I wanted to create some spring if I couldn't have it in the weather.  I guess that's why there's a bit of yellow and green in all of the rovings I dyed today!

Since each set of colors took half an hour to cook, I guess because I have four colorways, I actually spent two hours cleaning!

I think this deserves some definitely spinning time.  After that, I'll put up some of this roving on my Etsy site.   I haven't put anything up there right now, but if you go there, you can be notified via e-mail once I do start up my shop again.

Thinking about dyeing again

No, not thinking. I went to the Dharma Trading Company and bought some dyeing supplies, including a good book on the process. I already do know how to dye wool using a crockpot, but thought the book might come in handy for some tips and tricks. The Dharma Trading Company is a fantastic place to buy basic art and craft goods, particularly fiber arts. I really do mean basic, because you will not find findings or colored threads or yarn here. This store is really for the do-it-yourselfer, for the person who dyes their own fabric, thread, yarn, roving, etc. The only color of fiber here is white, pretty much. But, the prices are very, very, very good, and the service is excellent.

I believe I have a supply of wool that I will use. I have some pink that I think I'll overdye with blue for a varied pink-and-lavender color, and I probably have some white wool I can use, too. There is something very satisfying about spinning wool that I've dyed myself, so I might continue doing that from now on, with occasional forays to Etsy to pick up some really fancy stuff. I will also probably just spin white, and then dye it afterwards, although the thought of spinning nothing but white sort of bores me. But, it'll be an exercise in spinning control, instead of color control.