I used the "Knitting Answers" book as a portable surface to clamp my ballwinder to. It's just the right size!

There's a stained glass store (Royalty, I think) on Academy where you can ALWAYS find copper foil tape (as it's used for stained glass).

I just found this thread and was surprised to find that no one mentioned http://tablerockllamas.com Table Rock Llamas in Black Forest. They have roving, spindles, yarn, wheels, looms, books, and other fun fibery stuff.

And the owners are nice, too!

First, you need some copper foil -- stained glass stores have copper foil with an adhesive backing. Depending on how you want to finish the soldering, you'll want to get the foil with the color your final solder color will be on the back.

You can get a wide enough roll to either cover both sides of your slides together, or just enough to cover the edges of one or the other.

Tape up all sides of both pieces. If you have the smaller size foil tape, tape the seam between the 2 pieces.

You'll also need a soldering iron, flux, and, if you're making this as jewelry, lead-free solder. Soldering is really easy. All you want to do is make the solder flow and cover the foil. It's hard to explain exactly HOW to solder, but here's a video I found. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzvk6eMCyfU

You apply flux (to clean the metal) then heat the solder up very close to the surface. I'd practice to make sure you can solder the slides without cracking them (easy to do if your soldering iron is hot, and you heat up the glass too much).

There are patinas to change the silver color of the solder to either copper or black, depending on what effect you're going for.


Hope that helped!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7678712
and
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7678603

are my current favorites, and the former has 4 people who heart it (which I kinda wish would show on the your shop dashboard), but the latter doesn't. I just love color, and I'd totally buy the autumnal colored one if I went to a fiber festival.

I do steam dyeing as well, but without the pre-soak in vinegar water. I soak my wool in plain water, wring it out, put the color on, and then spray with vinegar. I wrap my dyed and vinegared yarn up (either in plastic wrap or in a freezer bag) and steam for 15-20 minutes. I then let it cool completely (overnight sometimes) and rinse. I've had reds not turn out right when I didn't steam them enough, or when I rinsed too early.

When I have problems with dye not coming out, I drop the yarn into the washing machine, turn it to SPIN CYCLE (no water, just spinning), and that gets the dye-water in the yarn out. It's MUCH easier to rinse after that.

That's the way I do it  -- it's easier with smaller amounts of wool, and I braid before I dye (to keep the fibers together as they soak[1]), then unbraid to dye, then braid after dyeing (for storage[2]).

[1] have you ever soaked 8oz of superwash wool? it's slipperier than a pack of eels to try to pull out of the soaking 'vat'.
[2] braids are easier to store, as all the fibers are contained by the braid, and you don't have to worry about bits following you around as much.

When I dye to spin for myself, I dye 2-4oz bits of a single color, and create the color changes by spinning 1 oz of this and 1 oz of that. That doesn't leave any "muddiness" because the colors don't mix in the dyepot, just in the yarn. That makes the color changes more crisp, and I like the finished yarn better.

The things that have helped me with superwash have been to 'braid' it before soaking, and to rinse carefully. I do a rinse-soak-rinse** thing, and just wring out the fiber and hang it to dry, or lay it to dry on a wire shelf. As lufah said, leave it to dry before trying to mess with it. Superwash roving can take a little fluff after it's dry, but if you try it while it's still wet, it'll fall apart.

** Rinse, removing it from whatever I've dyed it in (plastic wrap, plastic bag, etc.) supporting it in my hands, and only wringing it out, then soak (adding just enough so that the roving doesn't float apart) for ~1-4 hours, and another rinse to get the final dye residue out. I've ordered roving from places that has turned my hands blue or grey or pink, and I try very hard not to do that when I dye.

I just made an order; give me a couple weeks and I'll hopefully be ready to make another.

I think they upped the initial order to $500, and the re-order is  $200.. I'll double-check when I can find the paperwork I got from them last time.