I realized I’ve been leaving you in suspense over my purple sweater! It did get finished, and I literally had to take it to Colorado unblocked and block it in a friend’s washing machine, but it got finished. I wore it a lot and really, really enjoyed it. Several people commented on it (in a good way). Yay! The photo, or rather a piece of the photo, I snagged from a friend’s picture of the trip. We were playing an acting game called Freeze.
Be amazed! Take a look at this eyeball-searing shade of red. My poor camera hates it, and I love it! This is the result of switching the normal up a bit.
To explain. In the natural course of events, I ran out of my Crimson dye about a week ago.
Now, I’ve used two red dyes before. One is Crimson (my favorite) and the other is Fire Red. I had always preferred Crimson because of the deeper color tones. (The Fire Red tended to go orangey.) Well, when I ran out I hastened to order more, but the place I was buying from didn’t have Crimson!
Hello, world! I still exist. 
Last month was absolutely nuts with traveling, housesitting, visitors, and a cold, so I’m just now getting my feet back under me. But before I went off to Colorado for a writers’ conference I got to do another indigo vat!
And if there’s anything scarier than doing a natural dyeing pot, it’s doing it for the second time. Because things can go differently. And this second pot of indigo decided to change whatever could be changed. The indigo didn’t dissolve as nicely, the bloom took longer in forming, and the actual vat decided to get oxygen in it a couple times. I tell you. It was crazy.
Well, it still behaved fairly well. Although it seemed a lot stronger than I’d planned. I wound up with a nice medium chunk of fleece.
Prepare to feast your eyes on the myriad of blue shades I got out of the indigo pot. Gorgeous!
This is the skein of heavy worsted I spun on the drop spindle. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, which is unfortunate because I love the color. I dunked it in the dye only once, so it’s relatively light in color and actually has a little variegation going on.
So far the indigo doesn’t appear to be crocking. Hooray hooray. Dye leaks are something that occurred with dismal regularity during the cochineal dyeing. Which reminds me, yet another reason to like indigo dyeing is that it doesn’t smell bad like cochineal. It does have a strongish smell, but nothing like dead beetles with vinegar in them. (How’s that for ruining your yarn appetite? )
Here is another skein that I dunked three or four times. I think three. It’s one of the three Iowa fleece skeins I spun on the Walking Wheel.