Dying Some More

I've had a couple of days off this week so I decided to do some dying. I wanted an effect where there was one colour at one side and an other at the other and they would merge in the middle. I wanted the colours so be strong and saturated so I mixed up more dye then I usually do and poured away. The colours that I wanted were the emerald green and a navy blue. I don't have navy blue so I mixed some russet into the sky blue to see if the colour would be close to navy. I learnt that even if you put just a bit of red it really overpowers that other colour. I had to add half as much more blue again to get it to the colour I wanted. Also even though when the fiber cooled the water in the pot was clear it took many washings to get all the extra dye out. I think there is still some in the fiber but I got tired of washing and just laid it out to dye. Here is a pic of the fiber in the dye pot.

The blue looked quite purple even though I added half a cup of blue dye on top but it merged well when it set in the oven. The end product is pretty close to what I was aiming for. There are a few areas that are not completely saturated but that's ok. Next time I think I'm going to try to actually paint the fiber. That way it will have the colour exactly where I want it. Here is a pic of the finished roving.

On a different note I think I'm really getting the hang of spinning with a spindle. Drafting finally clicked in my head. Before I would have to do a lot of pre-drafting and then spin it with very little drafting to get the thickness that I wanted. Now I'm able to do a little of drafting to fluff up the fiber and then seperate it in fourths instead way thiner and then draft as I'm spinning. I still don't have the yarn perfectly even but it is still a huge improvement. I feel as though I'm spinning way more then just putting twist to something. Yay for me!