Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was very fun for us. We joined a gym and got started  learning our way around the place. On Saturday we dyed eggs with the kids and I just couldn't let the leftover dye go to waste. So I grabbed some wool and a handful at a time I used up the rest of the dyes. I did manage to burn myself rather well with some boiling water, but in the end I got a wonderful pastel rainbow of wool. I still need to process it and spin it but for now it is pretty to look at just as is. We had dinner in with good friends and opened a lovely bottle of wine.

Sunday we got up to see that the Easter Bunny remembered us and we ate our dyed eggs. Later we headed to brunch with Ron and Julie and then came back to our house for a visit. While the kids were resting Brian got to play his video game and I finished up some spinning. Overall I think everyone had a pretty good weekend.

I don't know why I am still surprised by the changes that happen to colors when I spin but here I am surprised again. This is the ball of singles spun from the rolag in the previous post - next to a spindle full of the white singles it will be plied with.

The colors are dark and rich and I really love them. I knew in order to keep them that dark I would have to ply it back on itself or leave it a singles but I wanted to make the 'same' yarn I had before to compare end results better so I went ahead and wound the singles into a plying ball. As you can see this lightened it up rather well.

Finally the finished skein of plied and set yarn. In the end it was much closer to the desired result I was trying to achieve with the first set of rolags that came out rather orange. I really like that I got a bit more of the rainbow effect I was looking for and who knows what changes will happen to the colors when I knit or weave it.

I had a very nice weekend with my family. We went out to dinner on Friday, and spent Saturday morning lounging around the house. We had a Saturday afternoon visit and dinner out with Grammy and Grandpa in the evening. On Sunday we stayed home. The kids played (with toys), Brian played (with his computer) and I played (with wool). We cooked a very nice dinner of crab cakes and Cesar salad together on Sunday and after we all went for a long brisk walk. All in all it was a wonderful weekend!
Sunday morning the kids and I made Calm Jars. I saw this project on Pinterest and thought it was a wonderful idea. I got them each a mason jar and let them fill it with various glitters and fun shaped bangles. Then we filled them with water and glued the lids on.

The object is when you are upset and/or having a fit to shake up the jar and sit and watch it until the glitter settles. It is just about the right time to let emotions settle too.

I am spinning a second set of 'scrap' rolags I dyed with food coloring. This time I wanted to see if I could get more distinct colors and try to get the blue dye to take better. I gave the blue dye a 3 minute head start from the red and yellow. Here is a (crappy) picture of one of the rolags (the other two are already spun)

 

The result of the dye in the rolag is much like I expected but it is spinning up very differently than I thought it would. Over all this is a dark yarn whereas the last one was a light yarn. I will post that once I am all done with that. Today's projects will be to finish that spinning, comb some wool, spin a different set of singles to be plyed with the dyed rolags, and make some boxes for my storage cubes.

Better than I thought.

I was a bit disappointed with those rolags from my last post. I thought I was going to get more individual colors, less blending and certainly more in the blue and green colorways. That was not to be and as you can see in the post below, the rolags came out looking, well, sorta pukey. I didn't chuck them though, I went ahead and spun them up on my drop spindle, and as I did the colors started to become a bit more distinct and in the end I liked what I had. Then I had to decide how to keep the color transitions. I had two options: The first was to ply it back on itself in a Navajo ply that would give me a three ply yarn but cut my yardage down to 1/3 the original. The second was to ply it with something else and that is what I decided to do. I grabbed some scraps from my combing project and whipped them up into singles. Here are the two singles wound into a plying ball ready to go.

 After plying and setting the twist I am happier with the yarn than I thought I would be when this all started. I have a little skein made from scrap wool that might otherwise have been tossed or used as stuffing for something. As it sits there are 54 yards here so really, more yardage than I thought I would get too.

All in all while messing around with some scraps I gained a bit of knowledge on how to make a multi-colored yarn that I really quite enjoy and a few insights into making the dyes behave the way I want also.