Change of Plans

I took somewhat of a departure today.

You know, last year on the tour, I made it about spinning fluff that I had a lack of interest spinning. The goal was to just press through it for the duration of the tour. It was grueling work spinning a bunch of fluff that I had had on the back burner. Come to think of it, it was probably more mental than anything else. I mean, we’re spinning with the bicyclists in France.  They work hard, so we work hard. Well, I was content to push through again this year. I was until I got that skein done yesterday! It was like a drug! After that little taste of an FO, I did some blog hopping and came across some beautifully spun fluff on r1, k1 (go see it-it’s awesome!). I was SO stash envious! But I couldn’t think of any fluff  that I had on hand to make it happen. So, today, I decided to go dye something. I went to my stash (the undyed stash that I built for color emergencies), and while I was looking, I found some of the fluff I had forgotten that I had bought from MDSW. I nearly somersaulted!

Score! Isn’t that purdy? :)

I still decided to go ahead and use some Kool-Aid to dye a 4-ounce bag of English Shetland wool that I had from Three Waters Farm.

This time I tried to make the color more potent than some of my previous attempts (like this one). I have had some personal successes, but they were more like happy accidents. They were not really purposeful in intent, really. I finally got it through my head that after the pre-soak, to get the color to have more saturation, I had to use less water when I mixed and maybe up the Kool-Aid. Because it was already pre-soaked and sufficiently damp throughout, adding even more liquid without compensating with more color was only going to give me washed out colors if I didn’t overdo it, in a sense, with the color. That was my logic anyway. For these colors, I generally used for every 4-5 ounces of water, 1 pack of Kool-Aid. I was going for a red/lime green/blue combo that maybe faded into oranges and blue greens where they touched. For the pre-soak, I know I didn’t need to add it, but I added some vinegar anyway. Kool-Aid is acidic enough by itself. But, you know, curiosity and the cat. It is what it is, lol.

I could already see in the steamer pot where some of the excess red and blue had gotten to each other…Note to self: I’ll need to make that strip of lime green a little longer next time, maybe (or sop up more of the excess color that slides out of the plastic as I wrap it up).

Back to the spin. I bounced back and forth between the two today…

It was looking good! This is merino tencel, so it’s a bit shiny and it’s pretty slick. I love it!

When the dye had set and I gave it a bath, I spun it through the salad spinner for a bit. Girl Child was really interested in that bit of the process. She took over after a bit, lol. Once the water content died down, this is what we got.

Hmm. That’s pretty potent! I kinda like it! :)  But it was still slightly damp. Sometimes the coloring seems to lighten up after it dries. So, I set it outside in the sun to see if it would dry faster. Girl Child wanted out anyway.

Back to the spinning. I started the second bobbin, thinking I’d probably spin a 2-ply with a chain-ply for the leftovers.

I’m appreciating that bike more and more everyday. ;)

And, the results…

I like these! No idea what I’m going to make of them. But I did notice the 2-ply might be nice for a warp if I wanted to weave with it. It’s pretty strong.

And here’s the Kool-Aid dye job all dry. I think that’s going to be fun! And I have something interesting to add to the  What A Kool Way to Dye Group on Ravelry! If you’ve never seen that group and all the hotness they conjure up with a simple pack of Kool-Aid, just flip through the group gallery.

So, that’s what’s going on. And I think I’m changing the plan for this tour. I just want to have some fun! Can you tell?