Busy! Busy! Busy!

I haven't blogged, but I have made a mountain of Christmas presents. Sorry, no spoilers.

I have also made a few things for myself!

I turned this:


















Into this:
























And, before I set the twist,
it did this super cute wreath-thing:












Which deserves a zoom-in:












Now, if I could get technical on you for a bit...This is hand painted wool roving. In the first picture you can see a skinnier roving, that is silk. Silk is way more dense and needs more dye and more time for the dye to soak in. My original plan was to hold the two rovings together while drafting, but it was difficult and the colors were not as intense as what I had hoped for, so I only did one ounce that way.

I spun the rest of the silk by itself. I did not know the above mentioned tips for dyeing silk before getting started, so a lot of white was left .


It is still very pretty:

















For both the wool and the silk, I dyed using only the primaries and allowed the secondary colors to mix naturally. I learned from the previous rainbow roving to apply the liquid sparingly. (My first rainbow roving was spun into a yarn I am calling "Muddy Rainbow".) To maintain the colors intensity and the color repeats, I peeled off thin strips of roving that did not need any drafting. The strips were the size I wanted and then I just put the twist in. Just to shake things up and make it more random (which is code for: help hide mistakes) I alternated with bigger strips of roving that I drafted to the same weight. It makes for some really neat barber poled spots where two colors came together.

I left them as singles, soaked them, and then let them hang dry with a spray bottle weighing them down.

I can't wait to knit this up, but it will probably be after Christmas.