How to Fix Problematic Roving Colors

This past weekend I spent some time drum carding some problematic roving into some beautiful blended balls of roving. Why was the roving problematic? The roving colors were purple, dark grey, bumble bee yellow, and blue/turquoise. I purchased this roving from Ellen's 1/2 Pint Farm. I think it is the "Alaska" colorway. I loved the colors on the screen, but the colors were just too complementary to look good if I kept the colors separate. In fact, I spun up some of the roving initially with the idea of Navajo plying the yarn, one of my favorite techniques. But, imagine if you will, the above color sections spun up in sequence. The problem is that when spun up, the yellow and grey ended up looking like a bumble bee with turquoise or purple mixed in. Shudder! Not exactly what I wanted.

My plan? Fix the fiber so I am happy with it and can spin it up into some beautiful yarn skeins. It's a 20% silk/ 80% merino wool roving, and I love the feel of the fiber and want to keep the fiber. So, using some information gleaned from Deb Menz's book Color in Spinning, I decided to blend the colors. Here's what I did:

1. Initially I split my roving into about 16 strips and rolled 2 of these strips into balls. For this blending project, I separated all the colors in the initial roving balls into piles of each color -- purple, blue, yellow, and grey.
2. My next step was to tease apart each color into nice fluffy pieces and card these onto the drum of my carder. I did two color layers per batt since my carder is thePetite Strauch Carder and has a smaller capacity than my initial roving balls. I carded the blue and grey onto the drum and pulled the batt off the drum. Then, I carded the other two colors in my ball, the yellow and purple. I placed these two batts on top of each other, as shown in the image below.
   
3. I then split the batt into thirds since the two batts won't fit on the drum.
   
4. For each third of the layered batt, I pulled off tufts of fiber and placed each tuft on my drum carder bed (shown in left photo below) and carded the fiber a second time, blending the colors more. The result is the batt on the right below.
   
5. My final step was to use my homemade diz and pull the batt into roving. I folded the batt lengthwise before pulling the end through the diz's hole. Here's an image of the initial roving (left) and the final roving (right). I am much happier with the way these colors turned out after blending them together. I can actually see myself spinning this fiber now.
   
   

This weekend I also worked on my fiber challenge project. I wove in the ends and have to wash the piece before sewing it up, but it is looking really good. I am very happy with the piece.

Lots to be happy about over here. Happy fibering!