Let's Dye Some Roving!

Originally Posted June 1, 2006

O.k., I finally got the nerve to try it.

I did two methods, one was to immerse the entire roving in a boiling pot of water and dump the dye in directly, the other was to lay out long pieces of Saran Wrap, handpaint the roving, roll up the whole works and steam it in my big canning pot.

I’m pleased to report that both worked wonderfully! I was afraid to try the immersion method for fear of felting the entire works but I must have had my timing down just right because it came out looking like the steamed bundle did.

This first batch is the wrapped up in Saran and steamed method. I handpainted this orange, brown and burgundy but the colors all ran together when I rolled it up to steam. I’m not disappointed, but I will remember next time not to get so dye happy. The close up photo is actually closer to the true colorway, I don’t know why my camera tweaked the colors on the distant shot, weird.






The second batch is the boiling water immersed method. I used the leftover orange and burgundy dye from the first bundle to get these colors. Oh, and some yellow too, which I think came out well.





And finally, a super bulky commercial skein, this is to be named Rocket Pop once it’s skeined up and counted.