Picture heavy Friday

I've decided to promise myself that I will post lots and lots of pictures every Friday. I'm hoping that this will make me actually work on something worth taking pictures of during the week. I've really got to get moving on these UFO's. For the innagural issue of "Picture heavy Friday" I'm sharing picture of what I did last night during no sleep Thursday. *smile*


During a bout of insomnia last night I decided to dye up about 7 ounces of BFL that I had at the house. And, since I was bored a took a ton of pictures of the process. First I wadded up all 7 ounces into one stocking, just like I was taught at the Harlot's blog, and soaked it for about 45 minutes in vinegar, non-iodized salt and water.


Next, I squeezed out the excess water very gently and added my dye colors. I used a coffee filter to test out the colors of the dye, I think I read about this is Color in Spinning, but I'm not really sure. The colors do look a lot more true on the filter than on a paper towel for example. I only had green saran wrap, so, well, there you go *smile*


Next, I zapped it in the microwave for about 15 mins. I zap for 5 minutes and then let it sit for 10 mins, zap another 5 mins, sit another 10, etc. until I get 15 mins worth of zapping. This seems to do the job pretty well.


Here it is fresh out of the microwave and green plastic wrap. I leave it out to sit like this until it is cool. It usually does not take very long for the roving to get down to room temp or below. Cool to the touch. Some people like to let the roving cool overnight, but I've found that since I have been using my dyes in the correct porportions (1% dye stock solutions, 1 ml of dye to each gram of fiber) I don't have any waste and the water runs clear almost immediately. So I don't see the need to let the dye sit longer to "set" becuase all the dye that is going to set already has.


I didn't take a picture of it, but I rince the roving still in the stocking by placing it against the wall of my sink and letting the water run down the side of the sink and pool against the roving (does that make sense?). As the water runs through, I press the roving against the side of the sink to remove any dye clouded water. This way the water is not running directly on the roving and you are not twisting the roving to squeeze out the water. Very handy, does not cause felting. Here is the roving in all it glory, rinced and uncoiled from it's sausage casing. I love how the colors turned out, I might try doing this again with enough roving to make a sweater. I could see myself wearing these colors.


Here's the roving open up and drying in my kitchen on a rack. I always open up the roving to help it dry faster and since I split my roving lengthwise to spin it doesn't mess it up for that. Roving is basically a flat rectangle of fiber that has been rolled into a tube so all I do is unroll the tube. It dries WAY faster, which means I get to spin it faster *smile*


During the waiting periods I finished spinning up the first two ounces of what will be my first sock yarn. Here is is on the bobbin.


I then navajo plied it so that I could keep the color repeats. It's about 140 yards, fingering weight. I guess I will end up with about 300 yards total. Is that enough for a pair of socks? I used cake dyes for this yarn so the colors should be fairly easy to repeat dyeing, but I would rather not. If anyone has any suggestions for a good first timmers toe up sock or if you could just let me know if I will have enough yarn, I'd appreciate it.


Here is a close up of the yarn. I'm very proud of this skein. This is the first time I have spun any where near this thin. I was worried that I would have a lot of breaks while plying since the yarn was so thin, but I did pretty good. I did break in a few places, but not enough times to get me really frustrated. I even brought this skein to work today so I could do show and tell. I figured if Friday's are share day at my daughter's pre-school, why couldn't I have the same thing at work? LOL! Ok, I think that enough for today. I have more pictures of some other things I'm working on but I'm sure many of you are already cursing me for adding so many pictures *smile* Have a great weekend and see you next week!