More summery colour

Four red and grey scarves off the loom.    I was certainly happy to get these finally done.  I'd put them on 2 months ago and just couldn't find the incentive to get them done.   I'd tied on to the last warp and I'd been a bit iffy about whether I'd liked doing that pattern or not.   By the time these were off the loom, I knew for sure I'd done enough of that pattern.   They are a wool and silk blend. I used grey and a darker shade of red for the warp and a lighter shade of red for the weft, to try to add interest to the scarves both in appearance and for weaving them.     I'm not sure that it accomplished that aim.   However, I do know that I now have an awful lot of ends to twist.

I experimented with cake dyeing, another low immersion technique.  I tried to make loose cakes, but my ball winder is old and still very efficient.  I'm not sure it could have made anything looser wind on than this.

 I soaked the cakes of yarn in water for a good part of the morning.   Having seen the results, next time I'd soak the cakes over night.  When dyeing, I also forgot to give a nod to Loki, to whom I always acknowledge when I'm dyeing, just to be on the safe side.   With all this going against me, despite the dyed balls looking promising, I ended up with this.   There is a lot of white on this yarn, which I'm not sure I like.   Luckily my not so brilliant outcomes are far less than the good ones.  

My next experiment was using only blue and yellow dye.   This is what it looked like in the pot while it was still getting started.  It took a bit to get the green bits to exhaust, but after adding a touch more vinegar and more time heating, it all came together.
 The finished roving is just lovely, with a wide range of greens, with a touch of yellow and blue.  It should spin up nicely.

I dyed these Blue Faced Leicester skeins using the same low immersion techniques, using blue, red and black dyes.   There wasn't much black left, and I wasn't in the mood to clean the jar and make a fresh stock solution, so I left it as it was.  The colours turned out perfectly and the skeins are so enticing.  I want to slap them on the loom and weaving something with them, though I'm pretty sure there is just 200 g or maybe 250, so not really enough to weave with.

I finished spinning up the last batch of blue/purple low immersion experiment roving.   It spun beautifully and the colours are lovely.  I had thought that maybe the blue and red would be a bit more purplish when plied, but I'm extremely happy with the blocking and distinctive colours which happend in the end.   To show the difference in the two techniques, I've put  kettle and low immersion pan dyed yarns side by side.  The two bottom skeins are the low immersion dye and the the upper one is the last skein of Polar Vortex which I'd kettle dyed a while ago and just finished spinning,  I like them both.