Spin and Dye (a couple of firsts)

Here is my first attempt at spinning:

I used Blue Faced Leicester roving dyed in the colorway"Tahiti (light)" from Spunky Eclectic.
When I finished plying, my spindle was so full of yarn, it looked like cotton candy. I followed the instructions here for spinning. My bf helped me out a lot by holding the yarn while I wound it and plied it. I haven't quite got the coordintaion yet to do this alone. I guess I need to practice in order to spin yarn with an even thickness, but I find this thick n' thin result to be pretty cute.


And here is my first attempt at dyeing (sorry for the blurry pic; this was as close as I could get to the actual color=slower shutter speed=potential for blurrage):

I Kool-aid dyed some Knit Picks dye-your-own yarn that had been in the nether regions of my stash for about a year. I had some trouble finding packets of kool-aid..seems those sugar included tubs of kool-aid are more popular, and you can't use those. Several grocery stores later, I finally found some packets in the colorway/flavor Wild Berry Tea. The actual color of the yarn has more red than pictured. It smells wonderful; very much like berry flavored tea. I used 16 packets and the microwave nuking method (10 min total) as explained at knitty. Since the resulting color is a semi-solid muted red with some brown, I think it's a nice unisex color...this may become a scarf for the bf for Fall.