Yarn Dyeing

Last week Joe, Elise and I hopped in the car and made the long trek from Michigan to North Dakota to visit my sister and her family.   We were planning on splitting the 16 hour drive into two days, but when Elise seemed to take well to sleeping in the car at night, we just kept driving.

Although exhausted, I was happy to get in a little earlier.  Yes, I was glad to get a little extra time with my sister, nieces and brother-in-law,  but getting in earlier also meant that I could attend the Roving Woolen Society's Yarn Dyeing Day!

Let's just start with stating this fact: when it comes to yarn dyeing, I am clueless.  I will not attempt to write any sort of tutorial or instructions.  My offering is this- pretty yarn pictures (and we can never get enough of those, right?!).

Here it is, my bare wool.  It doesn't know what it's in for:

My nieces had fun with the prepping:

Like I said, totally clueless.  I was squirting out random colors seemingly haphazardly: 

Until it looked a little something like this:

And eventually, we got to this:

'

One thing I did learn about dying yarn is that the colors fade quite a bit.  What I thought would be deep blues and purples turned out to be bright blues and purples after rinsing and drying (see below).

So, although my yarn is not what I would typically gravitate toward in a yarn shop, I'm pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.

Best part of the day?  Hanging out with these two and watching them dye their first yarn.

Look at those proud faces!  (ps... doesn't Kaiyah's purple yarn look just like Malabrigo's Hollyhock colorway?)