Roving to Yarn Transformation: I'll Take Two Olives

Space-dyed Merino roving becomes


Triple Ply Yarn (Navajo Style) - 160 yards, just under worsted weight

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First Self Striping Test - did the overdye fix it? Too soon to tell

After I created my first warping board for self striping yarn, I wrapped two skeins on to it, and proceeded to dye with fiber reactive dye. Turns out, this type of dye is not optimal for protein fiber, of which the two skeins were 100%  alpaca. The color happened, but lots of dye was wasted (it doesn't exhaust well.) The colors were totally circus colors (nothing wrong with that mind you...) But, I'm past my circus days, so I overdyed it this weekend. Here is the result...although the jury is still out on it, so the verdict is not known as to whether this will be a good looking project. Overdyed with pale blue. So, maybe overdyeing does not fix all.


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Nothing that a little overdye won't fix

Bought a skein of orange/red/yellow yarn a while back. Got it home, swatched it up and - Yuck, the yarn was underdyed, in that the colors were desaturated and I asked myself "Why did I buy this?" No problem, nothin' that a little overdye can't fix. Overdyed with blue, now sophisticated and waiting to be a hat.

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Memorial Day Denim Blues

As promised, here is an update on what I got finished during the Memorial Day Weekend.

First, an update on some yarn noted previously, but a much better picture.
Navajo ply, dyed with Jacquard dyes; handspun Merino roving. Click for bigger picture.
To be fair, the yarn was previously finished, I just knit the little swatch during the long weekend.


Finally, FINALLY finished: Denim Blue
About 700 yards of a little thinner than sport weight yarn, Navajo plied; handspun Merino roving.


And, wound off last night: the pièce de résistance! My very own self striping beauty.
About 500 yards of near lace-weight wool. Undyed yarn purchased from Dharma Trading.
Ohhhh so pretty. Unlike the space-dyed Denim yarn above, this yarn will knit up striped evenly. 
How to Make Self-Striping Yarn Tutorial available here.

Yarn Cakes!

As they say, being a copycat is the highest form of flattery...I am completely and unabashedly enamored with the way Brooklyn Tweed presents his work to the world. So, here is my Brooklyn Tweed-esque view of some of the wool I dyed yesterday.

Trio of Yarn Cakes - 200 yards each

Working on self striping yarn this Memorial weekend, I ended up some acid dyes that still had some umph, so I quickly wound off some white sock yarn and used up the rest of the dye. Here is 600 yards of blue green pretty.