Hot out of the microwave

So I dyed about 2.5 pounds of fiber on Saturday night. I am very pleased with everything I ended up with, and even managed to take a couple of "during" pictures of my dyeing process.

Here is the merino/kid mohair getting ready to go into the microwave. You can kind of see how I arrange the fibers into the baking pan, and then just pour the dyes over. I squished the dyes around within the fiber and then nuked until the water was clear. I didn't carry the lilac all the way across on this batch - I kind of wish that I had, but the resulting roving is beautimous. I have actually spun up almost all of it already! I'm spinning it worsted, and the tips of my fingers are still sore from all the pulling, but ohmygosh is it ever pretty!

Here's a pic of the fiber all dried and ready to spin. As you can see that the dry fiber is much more subdued in color, but, oh so pretty!

For this roving I split it down the middle lengthwise, and spun up one Joy bobbinful (sorry no pics of that - no light). I took the other half of the roving and spun it from the opposite direction. The first bobbin was spun with no predrafting, the second bobbin I have predrafted the entire length of roving before spinning it. I'm really hoping to get the colours to mix up as much as possible - lots of barberpoling and interest (hopefully)


I'm planning on spinning one more bobbinful of tussah silk that I dyed in a similar colourway and creating a three ply yarn. The tussah silk was a lovely surprise in the dyeing stage - it's unbleached, so the colours came out very rich and deep. I haven't gotten a pic of it dry yet - but this is what it looked like before I threw it in the microwave.

Is it just me - or does this look like brains? I think it does anyway, very pretty brains. I just threw this fiber into the baking pan willy nilly, so should have some nice surprises when it's spun up.

Tonight my mission is to finish spinning the tiny bit of merino/kid mohair that I have left. Which will definitely be a pleasure, this stuff is so yummy to spin, I just haven't been able to stop! I plan on starting in on the silk tonight. I'm almost thinking of doing a 4 ply yarn - two plies of each fiber (there would be enough to do so), but don't particularly like knitting with anything bigger than a DK weight, so we'll see.

I also managed to sew the buttons onto the Caramel Swirl. I wore it to work today, it is amazingly warm, and comfy - I even picked up a few compliments - but have decided that the buttons which I thought would pick up the silky bits are really not quite right. I did pick up some new buttons on the way home, and will switch them out tonight as well. I can already see that this cardigan is going to become a staple of my wardrobe.

Sorry, no pics yet - the light has been bad, and I really do want to give it a proper introduction to the blogosphere... so next post, I promise!

Oh, and think good thoughts for me if you're reading this around 11:am PDT - I don't want to jinx myself, but I have an interview tomorrow -Not counting my chickens, but the fingers are ever so firmly crossed (might make tonight's missions a bit diffy). I'm nervous and really hoping that I get it. So, yeah, good thoughts sent my way would be a tremendous help. Thanks!

Oh - and I mustn't forget - I found this little mushroom on my walk yesterday and really wanted to share it with the rest of you.