dyeing in the microwave

Never mind the bit of nastiness that the title of this entry may conjure up.

Last night I dyed a skein of wool single ply in the microwave. I can't wait to do it again! Here's what I did: Using one-shot dyes, I made a light paste in a few colors and painted them on the skein. Oops. I forgot to say that I first laid down about 5 pieces of plastic wrap over my work surface. That's important: this is messy.

I had dyed the entire skein a light gray earlier in the day. I really wanted to keep the colors separate and it occurred to me that if I use the microwave I wouldn't have moving water.

After I painted the skein, I poured some fairly thin black over most of it to darken up some areas. I also did this because I actually like to intentionally make some mistake when dying, because I think it's more beautiful when it's more random looking.

I rolled the skein into a sausage-like form and put it in the microwave for 20 minutes. I wasn't sure if I would wind up with a sausage shaped piece of felt when I was done. If so, it would only be six bucks down the drain (or a nice bunch of coasters when cut up. . .hmm. . .that's an interesting idea).

Anway, it came out great (to my eyes)! Try it. It's fun!

PS. The top picture is brighter than it really is. The real color of the wool is about halfway between the two pictures. Again, I need to learn to use my camera! Where's the book that came with it? Does anyone know where it went?