More hand-dyed rovings!

Learning to dye has been a hit-and-miss process for me so far - figuring out how to achieve the effects I want and how to work with each type of fiber to enhance their good qualities and avoid felting! It's been a bit slow-going but a LOT of fun and I think I'm narrowing in on a method that will work for me consistently. Updates to the shop so far have been pretty small, as a result I've got a basket of almost-perfect fiber ready to be spun, so keep an eye out for lots of hand-spun yarns coming to the shop!

Today I did another small update, with 2 Super Fine Merino and 1 Merino roving.

Super Fine Merino 4.3 oz

Merino 4 oz

Super Fine Merino 4.5 oz

I'll have some more Merino, as well as some BFL coming soon. I'm hoping I'll be able to do bigger updates as I fine-tune my process!

Grand Opening - Black Mustard Colorworks!

I'm so excited to announce the launch of my second Etsy shop - Black Mustard Colorworks! This is something I've been wanting to do for a while now, and I'm really happy to have it up and running. In the new shop you'll find hand-dyed rovings as well as yarns I've spun to showcase my dyed fiber. It's a little sparse at the moment but I'm busy dyeing away to get it stocked up and keep new rovings coming! To celebrate the Grand Opening, I'm offering FREE SHIPPING on all rovings (withing Canada and the US) from May 4-18th!

I'll be happy to combine shipping between shops, and items from either shop can go towards my Buy 3 Get 1 Promotion. For now I will have rovings available in the following fibers: Merino, SW Merino, BFL and SW BFL. In the future I plan to get into different blends, and I'm also hoping to experiment with natural dyes at some point.

Hand-dyed BFL top - 4oz.

You may notice a third sign-up option for my newsletter over on the right. I've started a new mailing list for those who'd like advanced notice of updates to the new shop. If you'd like to receive this newsletter, feel free to sign up again, leaving just the "Hand-dyed Preview" box checked. Otherwise I can add you to the list manually if you'd like. Stay tuned for a run-down of all the newsletters and what they will include.

Kettle Dyeing #2!

I thought I'd share the results of my 2nd dyeing session! Both are SW Merino and I'm really liking these color combos! I'm still ending up with more white than I plan for, so that's going to be my focus the next time I dye.

SW Merino in blues, greens, yellow and orange

SW Merino in burgundy, green, orange and tan

More on the way, I'm sure! I'm really getting into dyeing and I can't wait to learn more about it.

Kettle Dyeing!

This weekend I tried kettle dyeing roving for the first time. It was so much fun and I learned a lot from my first trials. I was familiar with the basics going into it, and I'd previously tried painting rovings, with decent results. I consulted a few online tutorials, primarily this one from Earthwhisper Fiber Arts. The most important advice I got from reading this was to add each color separately, letting each one exhaust into the fiber before adding the next. Reading that was a bit of an "Aha" moment for me because I'd always wondered how you can use multiple colors in the same pot without them mixing into a brown soup!

I have to say, I prefer this method of dyeing to painting. It requires much less space and overall I think it's quicker. My blue in the first roving (pictured above) separated into its 2 parts during the dye process, resulting in some pink that was not planned... But that's okay. It was a really good learning experience. I dyed 2 rovings, both SW Merino. I plan to spin them up so I can get an idea of how they'll look, how they'll rinse, etc.

Roving #1 - blue, green, pink, purple and gold with lots of white

Roving #2 - greens, browns, gold and yellow/orange

I can't wait to see how these spin up! I'll be doing another bunch of dyeing today, so expect more pictures to follow.

Dyeing Retreat with Mom

It's been a while since I've posted... there's been a lot going on in the meantime. I spent 5 days last week visiting my mom in Port Hardy at the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. We stayed in spinning, knitting, and dyeing all week and had a blast! My first few rovings are dried and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. Here's a merino/kid mohair blend that is super soft. I can't wait to spin it and see how the yarn looks. It ended up with pretty short color repeats, so I think I might try a single rather than a 2 ply, to keep it from getting too busy.

The other roving I did was a brown merino, which I over-dyed with pink, blue, green and orange. I love over-dyed brown fiber, so I'm looking forward to spinning this one as well.

My birthday present was a dye kit and a whole bunch of fiber - I'm so excited to get into dyeing and playing with color. I can already tell that it's going to be addictive.