Coopworth roving spinning and dyeing with two colors

Today was spinning again, very calming on a day when I went out to the car to do an errand or two, one being a second trip to the libe to get the DVD unlocked, which the circ lady had omitted to do, can't open it, before the bitter wind gets up again, and found, scream, a totally flat tire.  I mean sprawled over the ground. 

Called AAA, which was not easy, since they seem to have been overtaken by that dialing fraud which connects you with items not related at all to the real people.  Ended up ditching my rapid dial and doing it the old fashioned way, and got through to the real site.

They were not too long in coming, about 45 minutes, pretty speedy in weather like this, and the nice man said oh this is no problem, let's put the spare on, nice looking spare, brand new, huh? Oh-oh, pity it's flat.  Second scream.  So he inflates it said it's okay for now, but the other one's a goner, need to replace it.  Which I will do tomorrow, the tire people not being able to fit me in today, if the promised snow and ice don't materialize too much.

The good news is that it was at my own house, and I was waiting in the warm.  And that I had spinning planned.

The Coopworth, on the medium sized spindle, is working nicely now, my yarn definitely improving in consistency and fineness. I think the fistful of fluff method is best for me, at least it's working okay for now.

So I figured why not break out some natural dyes from the freezer and see how they go.  Wound the full spindle onto the niddy noddy (sometimes you need a glossary for the spinning world) and washed it the usual way.  

Except that the end of the nn suddenly shot off in my hands, and the hank of yarn skidded after it.  Which was when I noticed I'd forgotten to put ties around it to keep it organized in such an event. Third scream.  Now two wet handfuls of yarn snarl.

Nothing daunted, I did beat it on the floor the usual way anyway, you do this to set the twist, then figured it would be better to cut judiciously in a couple of places and wind it in loose open hanks, so as to get it unsnarled in my lifetime.  It can be spliced later, so it's just annoying, not a disaster.

Which is why you see the setup, yarn patiently waiting,  in four bits instead of one posh hank, for the addition of a jar of yellow onionskin dye and the rest of the beet and red cabbage.  Putting them together just to see if they make a nice combo or just mud.

Here it is with the beet and red cabbage

and here with the addition of the yellow onionskin dye. You can see a golden area there, among the purplish color.

I like this pic -- sneaky view of the underside of the oven hood, a nice inadvertent composition in fact.  This image might do well printed on silk to add to my transparency group.  But where was I...

You can't tell when the dyes are liquid, whether they're happy together, so I have to do the dyeing to find out what happens.  Remembering the green yarn I got from the last batch of beet and red cabbage, it may be that I get a green and gold sort of shade.  We'll see.   

Brought it to the boil, then turned off the heat. Leaving it overnight, and tomorrow we'll see what's what.  This is about 50 yards. 

Spinning is getting to be, as promised, more meditative, with fewer medieval curses, as I improve.  So this is good.