Okay, before I get to the new, let's talk old stuff:
1. I did a massive dyeing project a couple of weeks/months ago and realized that I never showed you my color wheel that I made from the project. So, without further ado, here ya go:
I also found two colors that I missed while dyeing the roving. The purple and the green are not true and broke easily, so the colors that they gave are really odd sometimes. But that's okay and that is why this testing was conducted, so that I would have a better grasp on what the dyes would do straight out of the box. The center three are not primaries, they are secondary colors. Please don't think that I haven't a clue as to how it is supposed to look. I just got lazy about putting the three in the center when I already have them placed in the circle.I am now very thankful to have all of the big pile of roving off of my table in my dining room/office/craft room. I'm sure it won't be long until some other crap moves in to take it's place on the table.
2. I'm still working on my first log cabin square. This would have been finished by now except that I noticed that I had picked up stitches on the wrong side of two different parts. :sigh: By the way, the Debbie Mumm Traditions yarn does not like to be ripped out. It's not fun.
On to something new:
I got the urge to dye some roving again. As a matter of fact, I wanted to play with 4 ounces of Falkland and I wanted to do some natural dyeing with tea. I have dyed fabrics with tea and yarn, but I wanted to try for a deeper color this time.
So I soaked the Falkland in water with some Alum and Cream of Tartar for a couple of hours while I took the Eldest to a gym class.
While that was going on, I got out my huge enamel pot and filled it with water and about a bajillion tea bags that I had lying around from an old tea party that I gave a few years ago. Yes, I said years. While I drink tea, I don't usually drink it caffeinated and at this point it would be too stale to drink anyway. I also added some ammonia to the mix (smells godawful now) in order to try and get a deeper richer color out of the tea.
The wool is now soaking and I'll probably let it soak overnight. I can't wait to see what color brown that I get out of it.
If it works out, it'll be one of the first few items that I will list in my new Etsy store. I'll throw out a link to it when it goes up. See ya tomorrow!
