I had a random bag of Coopworth roving in my stash, not quite sure where it came from. Coopworth is the breed of sheep and roving means that it had been prepared for woolen spinning on a carder. It definitely wasn’t as soft and luxurious as the Polwarth I had spun before it but the write-ups on the net described it as spinning up lustrous with good stitch definition and a halo. Strangely, this language actually means something to me now as I learn more and more about spinning.
It did spin up nicely. I ended up with 265 yards of a mid-weight 2-ply yarn. After my dyeing adventures earlier in the week it looked like a blank canvas just waiting for colour.
I wanted to try to dye it 3 colours so that it would produce a verigated stripey effect when it knit up. I hadn’t done this before so I did a couple of experiments on small bits of yarn to see how it would work. I first mixed some orange dye in a mason jar by adding yellow and red food colour and vinegar to hot water and then submerged 1/3 of the skein of yarn in it. The microwave added the heat and vinegar helped the dye set in the yarn. When it was as orange as I wanted, I took it out and dipped the next third of the skein into the same jar. There was enough goldy-yellow dye left in the water to colour the yarn a nice soft creamy yellow. For the final step, I mixed a new batch of soft purple dye by combining red and blue and repeated the microwave process.
It’s currently hanging in the breeze on the front deck drying. I can hardly wait to knit it.
I think it worked out pretty well, considering that i started with a bag of random sheep hair and hardly any experience dyeing:) The 2 dye tests were definitely beneficial, I’ll try to remember to do that for future projects. And I’ll try to remember to post a pic of whatever I end up knitting with it.