Leftovers

After dyeing all the wool for the Blugly sweater (which, consequently, I will be knitting for the rest of my life), we had some left over. The wool has actually been not-so-pleasant to spin. First, it's full of vegetable matter. That's "VM" in spinning jargon, and in this case it means that someone mowed a field in New Zealand and dumped all of the clippings on their sheep before they sheared it and sent the wool off to be sold in the U.S., to me, so I'm constantly picking picking picking picking out tiny burrs and pieces of hay. Also, it doesn't like to draft; it likes to stick to itself and pill up and fight me. But, the resulting yarn was worth it and I learned a lot about Making Wool Submit To My Will from it. And it's such pretty gray, I thought maybe I'd just spin the rest of it up undyed. Then I thought, maybe I could just dye it a little bit, but leave some of the natural gray to be enjoyed. So that's what I did.

First I soaked the wool and mixed up some colors. I did this at random, having one idea when I started making up koolaid/food coloring colors and then changed my mind several times.
Here's the soggy wool, laid out on plastic wrap:
Here's my hand, wearing gloves this time, applying koolaid to the wool:
Didn't get a picture of the plastic-wrapped wool cooking in the microwave, but here's the next step, washing the dyed wool in the sink:
And here's some of the finished, dry wool, all wound up, ready to pre-draft and spin:
I've started spinning it already, instead of finishing the Blugly sweater, and I have to admit I'm enchanted with it. The colors looks so different in yarn form! I've only got 1.5 bobbins done; I'm going to do a third and then 3-ply it with my new tensioned-lazy-kate. I can't wait to see it plied!

SIGH

I'm starting to think there really is a worldwide conspiracy to keep me from updating my blog. Last night I took a bunch of photos of the very wee bit I have accomplished over the past month and then, while uploading them to my computer, the computer crashed and wouldn't stop loading random updates and I gave up and ran off to spin even though I felt guilty because I SHOULD have been cleaning and then two hours later the computer was frozen on the "loading update 1 of 1, if you turn your computer off it will never work again and everyone will hate you" Windows screen, but I hardbooted it and finally got it to cooperate but then I forgot to make sure my photos had actually uploaded and then put them on flickr so I could access them and so...all I have to show for myself this morning is THIS:
A thumbnail sneak preview of some predyed wool I'd bought awhile back at the now online shop Cottage Fiber. This wool is now yarn, but all you get is a photo of the prepped fiber ready to spin.
Also, here is a picture of Mickie taking a bubble bath. He is neither spinning or knitting while in the bathtub, but these are the only two photos I had handy.

Not Abandoned...

I haven't abandoned my blog, I promise! I've just been busy. And lazy. Very, very lazy. But I have amassed some new stuff to show off, as soon as I get some good photos taken.

Also, if he were REALLY a superhero, wouldn't his name be IronING Man? SuperMARKET Man? And my mom wants to know where BatHROOMCLEANING Man is. Where, indeed! (I should talk - like I'm just a real freakin' success at housekeeping.)