Hand painted roving

I really should have been focusing on my MDSW or Bust goals, but I am a fickle crafter so other endeavors have been catching my eye (and time).

Dyeing my own fiber/roving is an idea which has been floating in my mind for quite a while now. I’ve done a bunch of experimenting before but never anything larger scale. Until a few weekends ago I decided I wanted to attempt my own space dyed roving.

4 ounce braids of hand dyed fiber seem to be the thing to do these days in the handspinning community so that was my goal. I already had some blue RIT dye powder from a project last fall and I picked up a box of green from Michaels. I thought the colors should go nicely together in a happy green/blue teal spring-ish type of way.

Before dying the whole 4 ounces I tried a few samples.

 

First up (on the left) was just straight up green and blue. It came out fine but much much too dark. It wasn’t at all what I had in mind.

Next (middle) I tried the same green and blue but using a lower concentration. It was a little better but still not a result that I could get excited about.

With the green and blue not getting me the desired results I branched out (right) and tried including some yellow using food dye (from last summer's dye experiments). I wasn’t really a huge fan of the result but it was at least more interesting. And I was getting tired of all the testing, so I just went for it.

This picture is the truest to color. Capturing color really is dreadfully difficult at times.

  I’m pretty pleased with the results. It’s been very tempting to spin it all up and see what the yarn looks like. I’ve held off in part because I really do need to focus on the other goals I set for myself. But also because I think it would be fun until I had a few dyed braids that I could spin together for some kind of crazy sweater project or something.

Given the relative success of this project I already have many other ideas in my head for what’s next. I’m excited.