Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Acid dye yarn

Give yourself plenty of Time to prepare for dying roving ,fabric ,or yarn .the yarn I'm dying here is coopworth,and Romney, Gather your supplies.  I have dish soap containers, it's what I had on hand. I live out the sticks, like really far out .....a hour to walmart far. Anyway you have to soak your yarn in a  dish soap /vinegar bath. I let mine sit overnight.

Ok the next day, squeeze the water from the skeins/roving. It stinks !!
Next lay your supply's out on plastic wrap, itprotects the workspace and helps you to wrap it up but I'll get to that in a bit. Never mind my grungy workstation.
now to the fun part. Paint your roving/yarn. Don't soak it, just wet it enough that it goes through all the layers.
Now put this in a microwave safe bowl. Wrap completely in the plastic wrap, microwave for 5 minutes. If the dye isn't all exhausted don't freak out. wrap it up again toss it in for 3 minutes more.
Wait until it's cooled. rinse with cool water until it runs clear, put inside of a salad spinner and spin out excess water. Hang to dry and voila! Pretty handpainted yarn!!! 
Pretty right!

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Half naked ewe

Ok so I'm working with my new spinning wheel the "ladybug" from Schacht,courtesy of my friends at bookwormsilkworm in radcliff Kentucky,well my review is this wheel rocks ,I've been spinning for a while on my drop spindles from my shop,dawnnikolecrafts.etsy.com and I will have to say that this wheel is so butter smooth ,and so user friendly my husband can spin,ok not really ,I've managed to spin three pounds in two days .i really really love this wheel, I've been spinning lightweight dk to lace weight ,it came with three bobbins ,and a booklet ,but honestly the book sucks ,but I got this set up with very little knowledge of this type of wheel ,but really aside from my neglected house I'm very pleased with this very easy wheel,update I found a local supplier of wool and later this spring I'll be a open fiber mill ,I sell my yarn I spin at my etsy store,www.dawnnikole.etsy.com , I'm very happy with my life now.
 B