The Yarn Side

Hand-painting Roving - Steaming, Drying, Braiding

When last I left, we had a coiled bit of dyed roving, waiting for a good steam. You can choose to steam in several ways:

• steamer basket inside of a pot, inch of water, burner on medium, lid on pot, steam for 30-40 minutes, making sure to add a bit more water if it gets low, but never so much that it touches the fiber.
• handy steamer bags in your grocery mark aisle, made for one-time use vegetables.
• placed inside microwave-safe dish, then microwaved on high for 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off, 2 minutes off.

There are plenty more ways to steam, I'm sure, but 2 of the above are quite popular, and the other will catch on with all the other reduce-reuse-recycle crazies out there, myself included. (note: I tend to not mind a little more blending in my roving, so I will often use the ziploc steamer bags repeatedly for yarn and roving, letting any loose dye migrate a bit, but this is a personal choice. If you prefer more control then you can take additional steps to do so.)

With your steaming method of choice, pop that sucker into steam mode and then take a look around you. What do you see first? I bet it's these guys...

Hand-Painting Roving - Ready, Set, Paint...

We left off with the fiber all prepped and our supplies all gathered. We're readying ourselves for part two, where the real fun begins! And, no, I'm not being sarcastic. I really enjoy this next part. It may make me do a dance, not unlike the one that Tom Cruise does at the end of Tropic Thunder. Now that I've given away a trade secret of my own, let's get into what's next...

Check your supplies--are you forgetting something? Since I forgot to mention it in the previous post, you probably are. Saran wrap, or plastic cling wrap. Have you heard of the "facepalm"? Well, you'll want to acquire some cling wrap and lay it out on your work surface. Me, I like to lay out a 13 gallon trash bag that I've split down the side and bottom. This has a bit of static that makes it stick to the work surface, and helps the cling wrap to stay in place when I'm trying to roll it out. Overlap 2 sheets of cling wrap by 2 inches. Now we can begin. No, really. Nothing else has been forgotten...I think.

Hand-painting Roving - Gathering supplies and prepping roving

I had previously discussed the idea of documenting my painting/dyeing some yarn. The mood struck, however, when I was prepping to dye some roving to send to a friend who promised to spin it up for me. There will be three parts to this series, and hopefully, in the not so distant future, we will have photos of the yarn it's become!

To get us started, we'll need to prep the fiber and gather some supplies. First, I pull out 4 ounces of the fiber I want to work with. (Note: I receive my yarn in "bumps" so I take the time to measure out 4 ounces of fiber and place each section into a ziploc bag to protect it from the elements, beasts and stray animal hair.) 

 

Items shown above:

• Water
• Synthrapol
• Fiber