On the Dyeing Day for the Spinning Course we did several dyeing exercises and, while I was feeling a bit burnt out on the day, I realise now that I really took a great deal from that class.  One of the activities I did rather half heartedly was the Rainbow Dyeing – which I believe is also called Space Dyeing? – and I really just did it at the time to fill in time.  Little did I realise the joy I would get from playing with fibre in this way.  When I pulled the sample from the pot I was in danger of letting it dry and shoving it in a bag somewhere in the shed but I was spinning some fibre for my final project and wasn’t too enthused by it and there was that fibre just sitting there.

Rainbow Dyeing Wool

Having learnt by now that my crafting attention span is quite limited and that I always seems to have at least 4 spinning projects and 10 knitting ones on the go I should have known that a bag of dyed fibre sitting in the laundry wouldn’t last.

Flicking it was a slow process but an enjoyable one and I still find it amazing how different a lock of fibre looks from unwashed to washed and flicked!  Flicking really brought out the colours but in some ways also muted them.  I have spun this fibre but you’ll have to wait to see the result as it is currently being knitted into socks.

After reading an article in the Fall Spin Off about using the “scraps” from the floor I was inspired to keep the cast off flicking waste and run it through the drum carder.  This is what I ended up with:

You can see the bits of Sari Silk Waste that I couldn’t get out of the drum carder in this picture and it fits in perfectly – naughty me using a “dirty” drum carder but I did think this would help clean it and I was right!

I am not sure how I will spin this up but this one MUST wait til I have finished spinning my final project and folio requirements!

Hope you all have a Happy New Year!