Dyeing yarn with stuff that I found...at the store!

I recently spun up 2 oz of my first acid-dyed fiber! Inspired by a photo of a lava lake in Ethiopia, I splashed a generous amount of dye onto 4 oz of superwash BFL top. In addition to my first time working with acid dyes, this was also my first time creating a "painted" roving. I was worried I wouldn't have space in my tiny apartment kitchen, but it worked out fine.



The drying fiber made a welcome spot of color in my wintry apartment.



The finished fiber came out better than I'd even hoped! Not a perfect match for the picture, but close enough to please me.



The finished yarn: a laceweight/light fingering 3-ply, destined to become socks, provided I can work up the courage to start on the tiny needles required. I also dyed 4 oz of this fiber to match the dark, bluish parts of this photo, and I plan to combine the two in either stripes or a mosaic pattern. I still have quite a bit of spinning to do before I start knitting, though.



(More photos exist in my Ravelry stash.)

Lavender Honey

As a dyeing novice, I don't always get the results I want. I recently dyed eight ounces of polwarth top in shades of purple and yellow. My plan was to dye each two-ounce strip of fiber in a long gentle gradient from a deep to a pale shade. I would then spin each strip into a singles, and ply together the two different purples into one yarn and the two subtly different yellows into another. Then I was going to make a bright and springtimey colorwork scarf.

After carefully measuring out ten different strengths of each dye and painting them onto the fiber, here's what I got:



Not quite what I was looking for! Not only is one of the "yellows" a very bright orange, but the long and gentle gradients I had in mind did not work out. Dismayed, I let the project lie dormant for a while until I hit upon the idea of blending the colors on handcards. After a little carding, spinning, and knitting, I came up with a fancy little swatch.



I love this tweedy blend of purple and yellow. It makes me think of Provençal pottery at my favorite breakfast place in Berkeley. I've started blending up the rolags, and will update as the project goes on.