Easter in June

I've been making a big mess on the deck again.

I was spinning happily on my Easter Egg dyed socks when I noticed the bag of roving was getting rather light.

I had cranked out 100 grams on the carder and now I had about 50 grams left. That seemed to be enough weight wise for a pair of socks but the bobbin looked mighty empty.

 I only had some odds and ends left to card but I did have another package of egg dye....

...and a small bag of white locks that had already been washed.

 The locks got a soak in vinegar water and a spin.

There were 12 tablets of dye so I had to use all the jars I had.

 It was too bad I didn't have more clean locks because it was a giant waste of all those pretty colors. I will buy more boxes of egg dye next year. Two is not enough.

The jars got a 30 minute steaming. Egg dye is tricky to exhaust. I had to put some back in to steam again. Blues and greens were the worst offenders.

 This batch came out much darker than the original batch so I am going to have to take that into consideration when I spin this. I hate that. I hate thinking about making colors when I spin. I just want to spin. Dammit.

While the dye pot was steaming, I washed my way through a batch of Cormo locks by dunking and soaping them up one at at time. It went quickly and I had this bunch washed and dyed in less than an hour. My last washing of three trays worth netted about 40 grams of extremely lovely, clean uncombed fiber that is a dream to spin. I could easily wash a shawl's worth in a few days so this will be my method of washing all my pretty locks from now on. No giant pots of hot water, no net bags-just a tea kettle of hot water, a jar of detergent and a bar of soap. Sweet. I am just kicking myself for passing up all that lovely Cormo at this year's MDSW.