u/Whispering_Firefly

After finishing my first project (legwarmers) and almost giving up because I was convinced I would never learn how to knit, I finally dared to try my first sweater.

The instructions for the Step by Step Sweater, together with the video tutorial, are fantastic and perfect for beginners. I learned so much and am so happy with the finished result!

For the yarn, I used Drops Nepal in the colour Ocean and needed 10.2 balls of yarn (50 g each) for size S.

This was my first attempt at dyeing a roving. I also have no other experience with dyeing.

Question 1: Unfortunately, quite a few things went wrong during dyeing, and in the end the water was strongly coloured. I had to rinse it about 10 times until the water became clearer, and now the roving is of course slightly felted. I can still spin it. Not as well as with undyed wool, but it works. Does this have any other disadvantages because it is felted? When spinning, plying, washing, and later knitting? Or is it not that bad since it is still spinnable?

Question 2: What did I do wrong during dyeing? I did it in an oven using a stainless steel tray. Before that, I soaked the wool in vinegar for about 30 minutes (60 g wool, 10 ml vinegar). Then I mixed the dyes without vinegar, a total of 1.5 g per 60 g wool (Luvotex) – I wanted strong colours. The wool was lightly covered with water, but not so much that it was really “floating” like in a pot of boiling water. In the oven I then struggled for 1 hour and 50 minutes, gradually turning up the temperature and later adding more vinegar because the water was still strongly coloured until the end. At first I tried 45 minutes at 85°C, and in the end I reached 140°C, and the water didn’t even boil (I know it shouldn’t – it was a desperate experiment). I did it that long, because I hoped, the water will clear up. During rinsing, especially the cyan bled out. Then I tried a second roving, this time with 20 ml vinegar at the start, twice as much water, and 105°C in the oven. It improved slightly (i.e. less bleeding afterwards), but the water was still strongly coloured. What did I do wrong?

I’m a beginner, and after starting to knit my first sweater, I fell down the rabbit hole of spinning. I bought an old spinning wheel (an old Kromski Mazurka, probably not an original but a replica) and a few combed tops. Now the first 100g are spun. The first 50g still had too much twist. With the next 50g, I think there’s rather too little twist? But I’m having a lot of fun with it. For now I’m sticking with Texel sheep wool and next I’ll experiment with colors and Navajo plying. We’ll see what I end up using this first “experimental yarn” for (unfortunately I already have far too many hats and scarves).