Interior Decorating Revolution!

We finally got around to putting up the artwork in my house today. We have a sad common room, which is less sad now that it has a giant couch and a TV table, but still lacked color.

So we added some paintings:



However, the room still lacks color. Specifically, the trim on the windows is really sad. Some of the paint is peeling off. So either we could cover it up with curtains, or we could paint the trim.

But what color(s)?

We lacked paint chips, however, I had a full palette of colors. Behold, interior decorating with wool!

Maybe we could do purple:


or red:


or turquoise-ish-purple-blue-something-or-other:


or light green:


I think you can probably do the same thing with different colors of yarn. Now you don't need to go get paint chips! And wool is so much softer than paint chips. Maybe we should just put the wool up. Except then I can't spin it...

We still haven't decided what color to paint the trim or what kind of curtains we want, but there might be some purple. Also, our floor is sad, too, and needs a big purple rug. Maybe we'll even paint the ceiling fan.

New Roving-- Fall colors

I dyed a lot of roving last week, which is now up in the Etsy shop. I decided to focus on warm colors, since my last batch was primarily cool colors.

Here they are, hanging out to dry on the porch:



More leaves 2:


Fire and Water:


More Leaves 1 (I think)


I actually dyed 3 rovings in similar colors, and called them all "More Leaves!" More Leaves 1 and 2 are in the shop, while I kept More Leaves 3 for myself, partially because I wanted it and partially because there was major blue spillage and thus I don't think it's worthy of selling. Same with the yellow orange one. But I have use for yarn in these colors, so I don't mind spinning it. And there are now 13 items in my shop, which I think is a respectable amount for the moment.

I also dyed a bunch of smaller rovings for myself on Thursday which I have not yet photographed. One of them might become a pair of gloves for a friend, and the rest I have no clue what to do with, other than turn them into pretty yarn and admire how pretty the yarn is. Actually, I think that's a pretty good plan. Don't you?

Whee, it's roving!

I've dryed and braided all of the roving and yarn now, and put it in the Etsy shop.

Behold my awesomeness:

Springtime



Mr. Biv




Poseidon


HRFSA


Summer Breeze


Jewels


I did some more dyeing on Monday night, with orange, yellow and red dyes. Unfortunately there was a bit of blue spillage (I was making one roving of orange and blue) with the result of spots of blue on the other roving. I might be able to salvage it. If not, I can either keep it all for myself or remove the blue, spin it into yarn, and sell the yarn instead. It's still drying, so we'll see what happens.

Dyeing

Today I experimented with dyeing roving to hopefully sell in my Etsy shop (which I just created this week). I bought 7lbs of merino wool on the internets, and I've been dyeing it in units of 4 oz., since that's what people usually have it in when they're selling hand-dyed roving.

My first batch came out darker than I would have liked, but apparently it's still pretty. I learned that I need to dilute the dyes more.



Also, I learned that the colors will blend a bit, and this yarn does not have the variegation I wanted it to have but oh well:


But batch 2 came out much better. Whee!


I have to wait for them to dry so I can properly photograph them, and then I can put them in the store. I hope people will like them and buy them and make pretty yarn out of them.

Here are 2 skeins of yarn that are from the fleece from my friend's alpaca farm. They actually do already exist in the etsy shop.



Also my banner is sad. It's a placeholder banner. I'll make a real one eventually (or pay someone else who has better skills than me).