Dyeing to Dye

I have been wanting to get at all my fibre and the yarn I spun a week or so ago together and time out to dye it and have a bit of a play with colour.

Lots of reasons for not getting to it until today, boring things like finishing quilts for people, one that I had to totally unpick, gahhhhh. Anyway on to more fun things.
I finally got to dye this morning and what a session it proved to be, lol. I had some silk noil that I had purchased from Virginia farm woolworks and liked what I saw of their dyeing of it, a deep purple and it looked interesting to spin.
I had some very fine merino 250grams of it and had already finely spun a bobbin of it in its natural colour, it was difficult to maintain a twist on it so I reverted to dyeing this as well and intend to do a funky fibre with it and the very fine white yarn plied together, well that is my plan. Watch this space for further development.

The 5 skeins of bunny, mohair and silk blend that I spun up in Port Macquarie was my most difficult decision as it was so lovely as it was. But then I thought, I had access to lots of lovely white yarn at Yarn Workshop so why not bite the bullet and dye the lot?
I chose to do the paint method, glad wrap and microwave for better control of the colour blending. It was more hands on (my pretty pink fingers are testament to that), and more fiddly but I enjoyed the process and think I did pretty well for my first go at it.

Hope you agree.

The photos:

1. Boston, "What ya doing now Mum?" My constant companion
2. Soaking yarn after the microwave. My reflection in the water as I took the pic. LOL
3. Tubs of prepared dyes.
4. Supplies, coffee and oh yea, yarn.
5. Merino slivers, they took the dye beautifully and I can not wait for them to dry so I can spin.
6. Little parcels ready for the microwave
7. The merino drying on the line, nice sunny day today, lovely.
8. The silk noil, spread out and done in several colours. forground, Dogwood, middle, Paw Paw and back is Eucalypt