Mail in for yesterday, May 07, 2007:*Free paw pin from the
Animal Rescue Site*Awesome blue postcard from Siobhan
Moving on, I listed two pieces of jewelry
on Etsy yesterday:
That covers me for Week Two of SpoC 2007, too. Woo!
I also finally dyed Anne's custom yarn order -- it's the first time I've ever hand-painted something, and the results were pretty decent, although not exactly what I was going for ... ;) (I used
this tutorial for general guidelines.)
While I was at it, I used some of the leftover dye to paint an experimental batt; I used some of the "short" Corriedale. With both the yarn and the batt, I pre-soaked them in hot water for long enough that it got pretty cool (more out of convenience than intent), then put them on a piece of plastic wrap. Food dyes (Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid with a few drops of yellow food coloring for bright green; royal blue icing colors -- not Wilton's -- with a little Pink Lemonade Kool-Aid for blue; and Black Cherry Kool-Aid with a little of something redder, can't remember what off the top of my head, for the red) got mixed in plastic cups with hot water, then I used a syringe to squirt them onto the fiber. Note to self: squirt less dye or else the darkest color will take over. ;) Rolled up the plastic wrap as per directions, put the roll onto a bamboo steamer in a wok, and steamed with the wok top on for forty-five minutes, then rolled the fiber out into a bucket of hot water plus soap, soaked, rinse-soaked, and voila! Photos of batt forthcoming. It came out pretty well, although I seem to have lost most of the green in the yarn and pretty much all the red in the batt. Doh.
I did another experimental Corriedale "short" batt that I'd pre-soaked in case by putting it into hot water in my dye pot (a little more than just enough to cover), pouring the leftover dyes over different sections of the wool, then transferring the pot to the stove and turning it on medium heat for a while. I knew we were going to bed soon, I was being lazy, and didn't want to felt the wool. Then I turned off the heat when we went to bed, and more of the dye appears to have absorbed overnight. I'll probably end up turning the heat back on tonight when I get home, because someone said recently that dye needs a certain amount of time at temperature to actually set, and I might as well. It's only a little over an ounce of fiber, so I won't have a fit if I mess it up horribly.
In other news, wildfire smoke has blown in from the north and appears to be covering most of Pinellas County at the least. It's a bit cough-inducing, but more importantly, I can't go outside to take photos, hence the even crappier than usual photography. ;) I may be forced to improvise a lightbox today. (Ohhh, how terrrrrible. ;))
