Monster Skein

I have recently discovered a cool place to get reused and recycled craft and art supplies in Houston, the Texas Art Asylum.  It's kind of a cross between a thrift store, an antique shop, and a craft supply depot.  On my visit I picked up a variety of picture frames to use for an upcoming project and two skeins of undyed worsted wool from the 70's.  (um, yeah... and a bunch of other stuff, but you don't really need to know about the grocery bag full of severed doll limbs.) 

This monster skein (hammer for scale) are those wee skeins dyed together.  I went with a tonal cornflower blue assemblage with a relatively long color repeat.  The lessons of this dye session have led to two new proclamations.

1. There shall be no more super long color repeats that require looping the yarn around the length of my apartment.  It's simply too difficult to keep the yarn from snarling into one giant entanglement, both while in the dyebath and later when trying to make a monster skein.

2. There shall be no more large scale dyeing until I have facilities like a yard and a hose.  I was responsibly doing the dyeing in a large rubbermaid type bin, but had no choice other than dumping it out in the bathtub for disposal due to the mass and density of water.  This resulted in a navy blue bathtub and panicked trip out for bleach.  (Which incidentally did the trick and the landlord will never know, but I could do without the extra stress.)