Greenhouse dyeing

At knit group a while back we were talking about how some people dye yarn in their car on hot days and every time I have got in the car for the last two or three weeks I have thought about it, but not got round to organising some.

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On Monday I had a bit of a dyeing session (photos to come on FO Friday), as I was handpainting roving I thought I would try a small sample. The car was at work with my OH so I decided to use my mini greenhouse instead. I have tried it for rising bread dough in the past, which worked well so I thought it had potential.

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The handpainting and wrapping clingfilm was done in the usual way, then I sat it on a roof tile that was hanging around the garden and put it in to cook.

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To show you it really is a greenhouse (the dye parcel is the slightly sad looking bundle top left):

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Dye parcel in close up, I closed the door and left it for about 24 hours, with just occasional prodings and temperature checks.

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Since it did not puff up in the way of a stove top steamed parcel I put a thermometer in with it to have an idea of how hot it got. Not that I know how hot it needed to be.
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The moment of truth was the next morning when I unwrapped it. To be honest I was expecting a lot of mess with dye running everywhere but was pleasantly suprised to find very little residual dye, a little more than a typical steamed parcel, but still not much and the colours stayed nice and strong.
Even when I gave it a wool wash soak only a little extra came out:
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The weather was good yesterday, so I dried it outside without any trouble.
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There's about 10g there, not sure what it will be, but that is for another day. I am keen to get spinning it but am trying to resist as I already have a spinning project on the go.

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I will definitely be giving greenhouse dyeing another go, it seems to work and after all its free heat, better for the environment and gives something to talk about.