A few weeks ago, my husband and I decided to allot some money to “play”.  We each had a specified amount to spend and I thought, “What would I like to buy from this newfound wealth?”  He bought a new iPad Air, but frankly, except for the fact that I’d like it to have a larger capacity, I could not justify a new iPad.

So I started thinking, what crafting supplies have I wanted but have yet to spend the money to purchase?  It hit me…supplies for two of my lesser practiced skills….designing and dyeing.

So I ordered some stitch dictionaries to round out my collection, and I picked up some acid dye powder. I also snagged 20 skeins of undyed merino nylon sport yarn (which if I am to be completely honest, I’ll admit were supposed to be sock yarn) and a few batches of undyed fibre.

Yesterday, the box showed up at the door.

So many exciting things to have fun with, once I got to the end of my workday!

So after dinner, hubby went off to his night shift and I decided my first attempt was going to be a pine-y green from the six colours that were in my “starter” kit.

I still have the liquid dyes but I really want to transition over to these so I figured I may as well get started.

So I added the colours and turned on the slow cooker.  Mental note to self…cooker works better when actually plugged in….*sigh*

When I was done with the stirring, I added the yarn and it occurred to me that I was going to be sad with the result.  After all, I had made a point to make sure the dye bath was totally homogeneous so now I was going to have solid green, right?  And I really didn’t want that.

Well, as it turns out, hand-dyeing is part colour mixing, part alchemy.  The yarn…turned out nothing like I thought it would.  Nope…not at all.

On the line outside this morning, it was clear there were paler parts, and, O happy day, some parts that definitely veered off towards the blue.  I could not have been happier with the non-solid result.

Since I have no idea whether I can reproduce this, I may earmark this for sport weight socks for me.  And with the number of skeins I have, this may push me to design a sport weight sock pattern…but I digress.

Now I have another skein soaking…can’t decide whether to try orange, or some version of pinky-purpley-fuschia.  This is entirely too much fun!!