Earthy new yarn

Yet more new yarn. This one 100% merino that I added some silk sliver to as I spun. The silk is mostly white. I dyed it in the same pot as the yarn, but silk sliver is really hard to dye through. The silk doesn't want to open up and let the water in and the fiber on the outside of the sliver is so thirsty for dye that it soaks up all the dye in the area quickly and it doesn't have time to penetrate. So the inside of sliver dyed in the way that I did for this experiment, can have a white core. There are ways to overcome this. The one that I use most often when dyeing silk sliver is to heat the pot up before adding the vinegar. The heat helps the dye to penetrate. You can also paint the sliver, let it sit for an hour, wrap it in celophane and steam it. The benefit to this method is that you can manipulate the silk and pull the fibers apart so that the dye can penetrate.