A Handspun, Hand-dyed Adventure - in less than 20 hrs.

Thursday was a good day. I woke up to find a message from knittyblog.com (blogging home of knitty.com)  I had won the giveaway prize of Cookie A's new book (and the PDF for access before the book is out) PLUS sock yarn from Lorna's Laces! Honestly, how better to start the day?

Abi and I then attended the local Kids Hop where we met up with a friend and her son.

Nap time was supposed to follow, but someone decided to not sleep. She silently made a mess in the room instead (with stickers, not so bad as some of the stories I've heard about other toddlers...)

We did crafts after "nap", picked up Robin from work, at some broccoli (honestly, she started eating the top like an apple after refusing some broccoli sticks)...

And then I went out for Knit Night with the Mob.

After knitting my lace shawl for a while, J of Lofty Fibres arrived. That was some time around 7pm.  She has very kindly lent me a drop spindle to try.  Of course, I immediately pulled out my Romni wool fiber (brought along with the supplies for my desk-spindle to show and tell) and started to spin.  I wanted to take advantage of having other spinners around who could give me some starting tips. After the cafe closed some of us went back to a local home for more knitting and spinning.

Some time between 9 and 10pm  I stopped spinning my first ply of yarn.  The fiber kept breaking as I tried to spin, at the end, so I wound what I had onto a TP roll and started a second ply.  By the time I got home, shortly after 10:30, I had this:

 I was already giddy from the excitement of spinning my own yarn (the others can attest to that!), so of course I had to spin a little more at home.  I went to bed around midnight, but in the meantime I finished two single-plies:

Over coffee, G had been teasing that I'd probably have a double-plied skein of yarn by next week. Ha! I laughed - by tomorrow!! The challenge was set.  This morning I plied the two bobbins together, while hanging the TP rolls from the ceiling.

When I'd exhausted one of the plies, I had this much remaining on the second.  I can't remember which one I did first. I think what remains is from the first spinning because it is finer.  The second time I deliberately tried to spin thicker yarn.

I skeined the 2-ply around the table. Tied it up...

Pulled it off and, look, no curling. I'd say it's an aran/bulky weight for the most part.  I measured it - alas, it is only about 19m of yarn.  Enough to put a decent stripe into a hat! Especially if that hat is for Abi.

 A close up

Next up, of course, was the dying.  Abi chose the colours and dropped the blue and red food colouring into cups with water and a little vinegar while the crock pot heated. There was more vinegar in the crockpot water to help set the dyes.

Abi poured the colours in, one per side, but as expected they quickly mixed. That's okay, purple is good. (If I hadn't wanted them to mix as much, I could have used less water and no swishing, but Abi wanted to swish).

After an hour the yarn was looking decidedly purple.  The blue wasn't entirely exhausted, but since there had been no measuring of dye (I have no idea how many drops Abi used!) I wasn't worried.

 It is very difficult to capture purple on camera

We pulled it out to rinse it at 12:30pm.

 But there was really not much to rinse. The colour was fast.

Right now it is hanging to dry in Abi's room after we squished it in a towel (Abi's favourite part)

FUN FUN FUN