Thursday, November 8, 2007

Kool-aid, egg dye and alpaca

I dyed the alpaca in two batches. The first being the blue fiber. I filled an old margarine container with hot water, vinegar and the liquid egg dye. I gently put in the washed uncarded alpaca fiber in the container and put the lid back on. I then left it outside for about two days. Very scientific, right? Anyway, after that I washed the fiber with cool water and put in on a old towel to dry. I dyed the green fiber very similar, except I used kool-aid and only let it cool for one night. Hm, now what should I do with it? How about mittens! I decided that I wanted a fair isle pattern with variegated yarn with a natural color background and blue cuffs. The alpaca required hardly any carding and I was spinning in no time. I first spun the undyed fiber, then the blue and finally the blue/green.

This is the blue/green yarn still as a singles yarn. I spun fair long chunks of blue then green, so when I would ply it I would have some solid color patches.


Here is the blue/green yarn plied. About 7-8 wraps per inch unwashed. I think I want to make a flower design on the mittens but, I'm not sure...


The undyed background yarn. 7 wraps per inch. Very, very, very soft.



The cuff yarn. 7 wraps per inch and so pretty. I really should get a new camera to actually show what it looks like.
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