Painted roving with Easter Egg dye tablets

Today was a pretty dreary and rainy day. Just perfect to spend time in the kitchen dyeing wool. If you have read this blog before you know that now and then I like to use easter egg dyes to dye my fibers. I usually do this in canning jars but today I wanted to see how this dye would paint roving. I didn't actually paint the roving this time, I sprayed the roving. Let me give you the steps.

1. Use empty dish soap bottles (or something similar)

2. Put 3 or 4 tablets of the dye in each bottle.

I used 4 blue in one bottle and 4 red in the other bottle

3. Fill the bottle with a vinegar/water blend and let sit until the tablets are dissolved.

I use 1 part vinegar to 2 parts water

4. While you wait for the tablets, wet your roving but make sure it isn't soaked and place in a baking dish going up and down the length of the dish. You can keep layering until the dish is full.

See picture.

5. Gently squeeze the dye onto the layered roving making stripes. Do one color and then fill in the non colored areas with your second color dye. You may use as many colors as you like.

6. Gently pat down the wool to make sure there is no white showing.

7. Place baking dish in a 300 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

You may use a microwave if your baking dish is small enough

8. Turn off the oven but keep the baking dish in the oven until it cools. When you take it out you can let it stand a bit longer until it is fully cooled. The dye really gets soaked in during this time.
Since I didn't have to use my oven tonight for dinner, I just let the roving stay in there until early this evening.

9. Rinse and set out to dry.

When I finish rinsing my fiber I spin it out in the washer. It takes much of the liquid out and the fiber dries much faster.

I have to say I am very pleased at how this came out. I believe this would work for yarn also. That will be my next experiment. I can't wait for this roving to dry so I can spin it up. I may ply it with something different. I will post pictures when it is spun. Happy Dyeing!!!!! Anne

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First Shawl Finished.....Hooray!

Wow, I can't believe it has been so long since I posted. I have been so busy here at Emerald Hill. As you know I have been working on 2 shawls and last Friday I finally finished one. I love it. I blocked it yesterday outside in the warm breeze. It wasn't very comfortable standing out there in the glaring sun but I just had to get it done so I could post pictures. The pattern I used is the Mohana shawl by Monika Steinbauer. I did change the edging though because I couldn't quite understand how to do the picot edge so I added a couple of rows of my own and then did a crochet bind off. I like how it came out. I don't believe I will ever be able to get the color the same. It was a dye experience.

The past week I have been out almost daily picking the wild blackberries in the yard and then cooking with them so I haven't had a lot of time to knit on the pie shawl. I have never seen this amount of fruit in my yard. The vines are growing everywhere. I have made jam, pies and muffins. Today I will make jelly from just the juice of the berries. I can't eat berries with the seeds so this batch is for me. After extracting the juice from the blackberries and storing it in the fridge for my jelly making I added some water and vinegar to what was left in the pan and then some wool to see if it would dye the wool. I heated it and then left it overnight. Unfortunatley most of the color stayed in the water and the wool was a very very light raspberry. Maybe if I had added more juice it would have taken better but I think I would rather have the jelly. I started washing fiber again and it is now sitting in tubs in the kitchen. I sure do keep busy but somehow I always manage to find time to knit. Anne

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HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

I hope everyone has a great day today. My daughter and 2 of my gradnchildren including the new baby are coming over for a cook-out. Her husband has to work and my husband is on call so we have to stay close to home. I won't get to see the fireworks because the baby can't go (too loud for him). I volunteered to stay home with him so my daughter can bring her 8 yr old son to see them. I really don't mind at all staying home with JJ. He is only 6 weeks old and growing so fast. I just want to spend as much time with him as I can.
I hope to find some time to work on my Mohana shawl today. I have some weeding of my flower garden to do and I am back to washing fiber again and today is a beautiful sunny day just right for drying wool on the screens.
I still have some fiber for sale at the website. I have been spending so much time knitting I have been neglecting the fiber and my spinning. I have some beautiful red/violet wool I want to blend with some white and spin up. I am also thinking about doing a rainbow blend to spin fine and then use for a lace shawl. So much to do and never enough time. I need more hands or another me. I must make a list and prioritize. Of course I never do that. Well, I am off to get the day started. Have a Wonderful Fourth!!!! Anne

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