I felt like dyeing...

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes. I'm definitely on the mend, in fact, I was well enough to finish my socks...
Before you ask, yes, that really is my skin color. I'm almost as white as the wall behind me. I think the funniest part is, my legs have actually see quite a bit of the Colorado sun, and still they are this white (of course that may have something to do with the SPF 50 I slather on everytime I know I'll be outside for long periods... what can I say? I hate sunburns).



You can't quite see the cables from this particular picture so here's a close up on the detail of the leg. I am still in love with Koigu and I really love the pattern I made up, the only problem is variegated yarns and somewhat intricate sock patterns just don't go together well. The colors of the sock yarn completely overtake the pattern so much so that you can barely see it. I'm fine with that though. It was all an experiement anyway.

So, remember that laceweight merino yarn that Toni sent me? Well, I was feeling sort of creative this morning. Gabe's at work till 5pm, I don't have to go to work till 5pm... what's a girl to do when she has that kind of time on her hands.... Some would say knit.... others would say spin... but this particular morning I was feeling more like dyeing...

I ran out to the craft store and bought a couple different colors of Wilton food coloring. I soaked the yarn for a good half hour with a bit of vinegar.

Wouldn't you say this pink was just dying to be another color? (No pun intended there) Then I added the dyes, wrapped it up and sent it to the microwave...

After a few good zaps in there, I let it rest for a bit, then rinsed it till the water ran clear...

A bit of a side note here... whenever you're dyeing anything, be sure to think ahead and get some rubber gloves. However, if you happen to forget to get rubber gloves like a certain someone I know, never fear... soft scrub with bleach will be your best friend. I was sure that dye was not going to come off of the countertop, or my fingers for that matter, but it came out of both! Good thing too, I'm not sure if people would really appreciate a waitress with blue fingers...

Back to the fiber: The finished product is now sunning itself on the back porch...

I absolutely love how it turned out. Here's another little picture that shows the colors a bit better.

So now that I've dyed both fiber and yarn, I have to say I like dyeing the yarn better. Sure it's fun to dye fiber, but sometimes the finished product (that is, the spun yarn) does not turn out as nice as the dyed fiber. Or it just doesn't come out looking at all like you imagined it to. With yarn, it's already spun and you know what it looks like. I guess that's why I liked it better.

I can't wait to try knitting something with this... lucky for me it's quite arid here in Colorado and I don't have to wait very long for my yarn to dry!