non-spinning yarn stuff

Just a little update on what I have been doing the last few days... that's not spinning yarn.

Saturday night we had a guest over in the form of my 11 yr old nephew. This is a good and a bad thing. Good because it keeps the 9 yr old son busy, bad because I am convinced that boys can't play together without getting on each others nerves. So, my kid went to bed about 10:30 which is late for him but not so early that he misses time with his cousin. The 11 yr old went to bed an hour later. So from about 9:30 till 12:30 I did some dying.
This is the result. I am trying to stay away from to many pastel like colors and get more saturation but I didn't have any luck that day.

I have discovered that so far, my new baby blue dye is breaking funny. Its really annoying because it creates spotting on the yarn/roving. I purchased two packets so I may need to open the other and see if I get the same effect. Also, instead of hand painting I may need to opt with a soak in a pot. Just in case the dye is not mixing well. I'm not sure why it would since all my other dyes used while hand painting mix up fine.

I also got some carding done. I don't have a really good picture since I wasn't planning to take any. However, my husband was playing around with the camera and got several fiber pics (after he took my spinning pictures.) So in case you can see through the clear plastic enough, thats my new batt set. Its pink and black with sari silk and bamboo and glitz and some regular silk as well. That's pretty hard to see but I will be sure to upload more pictures in the future.


In the store, I went through and remeasured the yarn that had been dyed in block coloring such as "Parakeet." Surprisingly that yarn was listed at 114 yards and it was actually 132 yards. However, most of them were roughly the same yardage as listing. The only difference is that instead of using the word "approx" the measurements are more exact.

So, on a final note I wanted to mention that I got some samples sent in for the April PhatFiber box. I didn't mention it earlier because I had some restraints that made me unsure if I was going to be able to make it. (Now, lets just hope the PO doesn't have issues.) I hope to contribute on a regular basis or at least bi-monthly. Since it was my first time I only sent in a few but next time I will be more experienced in what I need to do to get more samples made. If you happen to make it here after getting a box, be sure to leave a comment. I'd love feedback!