The dyed roving

Over the weekend I finished spinning the dyed roving! I now have three small balls of variegated two-ply yarn looking for a project.

Spun roving

Pretty, no? I’m not overly happy with the spinning – I was having a bit of trouble drafting this wool evenly. Since I purchased originally to make thrummed mittens with, spinnability wasn’t a prime consideration. It was cheap, and thus a good wool to practice dyeing rovings on. My driveband gave way just after I finished this, so I need to do some repairs before tackling anything else.

I did a new batch of sock yarn in the solar yarn cooker.

Sock yarn

Lovely summer colors, grape, berry, and bumble. The grape is an experiment in sock-ikat that hasn’t been untied yet. It should be thoroughly dry tonight, so maybe you’ll get a peek tomorrow.

I did one more dyeing project, but have no photos yet. I’ve been reading various spinning blogs, especially Abby’s, and have been enamored of some of the fancy luxury blends. It so happens that I had an ounce of camel, an ounce of tussah silk, and quite a bit of merino lurking in my stash. Hm… all three went into the same variegated blue dyebath, with very different effects on the brown camel, honey-colored tussah and white merino. I’ll card them together, and see if I can spin the mixture up in a laceweight yarn. Mmmm, yummy!

One response to “The dyed roving”

  1. Laura Avatar
    Laura

    Ooh, that DOES sound good! I like the idea of “sock ikat” too. You are responsible for me now wanting to make quantities of variegated rovings.

Welcome!

I’ve been doing stuff with string for quite some time, and describing it to others online since 1996 or so at Phiala’s String Page.

I also do some science and write some fiction.

I’m Phiala most places on the internet.