isn't it ironic? don't you think?

So I'm taking a couple days off work to dye and recover from all the upheaval in my life. Thus I finally have stuff to write about, but I'm away from my house and my job, so no internet! D'oh!
Anyway, the yarn retreat started with the delivery of a big fat bunch of yarn and spinning fiber.


Oh yeah. I dyed a few samples last night. It's really interesting how different fibers react to the same dye. Here are a brushed mohair yarn, a BFL roving, and my regular superwash/nylon sock yarn, all dyed the same colorway.




Kind of amazing, isn't it? The colors come out very dark and more to the blue end of the spectrum on the roving, and much less saturated on the mohair. In fact, that's the only time I've ever seen the gray dye actually look gray instead of more of a pale blue-green.
Also, I got a little sample of a merino/tencel blend from Little Barn to try out.


I really like this. I didn't expect the tencel to leave such obvious streaks like that--I bought some 50/50 merino/tencel that somebody else dyed, and it had the tencel distibuted more evenly, resulting in an overall luminescence. But this stuff, even if you look at it before it's dyed, you can tell which fibers are the tencel. It's a cool effect, too, just not what I was expecting. I'm eager to see what it looks like spun up. Unfortunately, I don't have a washing machine to spin the water out of everything--I just have to wait impatiently for everything to dry.