I'm Dyeing to Tell You About My Weekend!
Funny, I hadn't really planned to do any dyeing this weekend, it just sort of happened! It all started when I over-dyed the yarn for the Scrawl. I had Koolade dye left so I dyed about 1/3 of one skein of the sock yarn I got from Wild Geese Fibres. And you know how it is when 'started' projects are left in the open where they can stare at you rebuking your procrastination!
I had decided to do something a little different when I dyed this skein. Last time I dyed with 3 colors there was some of each color on every loop of the skein. This time I wanted to make something a little more controlled as far as striping goes ... uh, did I say 'controlled'? Maybe I should have selected another word like 'unique' - yes, I think unique will be more adequate..... What I wanted to produce was a self-striping yarn with blue being the 2nd color every time. This would make the other 2 colors somewhat alternating - yup, "somewhat" is about what I got! Let me show you......
First, I separated the skein into 2 'arms'. I started with the skein laying flat and lifted each loop, alternating which 'arm' I put it into. Now you must realize that this is NOT a true alternating because no skein has it's loops in perfect order. When I set out to do this I knew it would NOT be perfectly alternating!
Yup it looks a bit like a squid!! Here it is all separated into 2 arms.
Next I knotted & tied one end out of the way and looked into dye colors. I wanted something sturdy but I just couldn't face another sock project with green and the turquoise turned out so pretty! Here is what I chose:
With colors named Watermelon and Silver Birch, how could I go wrong, right?? Ha! Ha! Ha! In this picture the labels are almost perfectly true to real life. The dye inside however was NOT! Turns out watermelon was a sickly lipstick-coral-orange-pink and would have looked like puke next to the turquoise. Since I had already dipped the tip of the yarn in it I knew I would have to do something ... so I added a pinch of Garnet to it and ended up with a dark rusty red-brown. Rats! Not the light feminine counterpoint I was aiming for, to be sure!
Surely a color like Silver Birch would be a luminescent grey to soften and balance things out, right? Wrong!! Turns out Silver Birch is the color of trees at midnight on a moonless night! I pulled the skein out fast but it was pretty dark! Hrrmph! Soooo I added a half cap of Cornflower Blue, hoping to get ... well, at this point I don't know what I was hoping to get, just something that didn't look like ink! Fortunately I only dipped the tip into this brew - darker than NAVY!!! I dumped it down the drain and made a new batch of just Cornflower, which, by the way, is actually just a Royal Blue. I overdyed the midnight and at least ended up with a dark Slate Blue. With washing it may mellow into a slightly softer hue but at least the entire project wasn't ruined. I can't say I hate the colors - but this was one time scientific progress fizzled!! Here it is drying in the sun:
It really isn't quite so red. It dried fairly quickly so I brought it back into the house to re-establish the skein so I could put it on the swift and then wind it. It took a few minutes since you can only re-form a few strands at a time without making a hoarry mess, but just to prove it's possible I took these pics. The colors are not accurate!
It's weird how it looks like there's more rusty red than dark blue. I know from winding it that there ARE sections that go Turquoise-Rusty Red-Turquoise-Rusty Red - Turquoise- Dark Blue. In spite of everything I'm looking forward to casting on a sock this week just to see how it will knit up! Ah! The foibles of love!! Here is the ball, wound and ready to roll! The colors are fairly accurate!
I had decided to do something a little different when I dyed this skein. Last time I dyed with 3 colors there was some of each color on every loop of the skein. This time I wanted to make something a little more controlled as far as striping goes ... uh, did I say 'controlled'? Maybe I should have selected another word like 'unique' - yes, I think unique will be more adequate..... What I wanted to produce was a self-striping yarn with blue being the 2nd color every time. This would make the other 2 colors somewhat alternating - yup, "somewhat" is about what I got! Let me show you......
First, I separated the skein into 2 'arms'. I started with the skein laying flat and lifted each loop, alternating which 'arm' I put it into. Now you must realize that this is NOT a true alternating because no skein has it's loops in perfect order. When I set out to do this I knew it would NOT be perfectly alternating!
Yup it looks a bit like a squid!! Here it is all separated into 2 arms.
Next I knotted & tied one end out of the way and looked into dye colors. I wanted something sturdy but I just couldn't face another sock project with green and the turquoise turned out so pretty! Here is what I chose:
With colors named Watermelon and Silver Birch, how could I go wrong, right?? Ha! Ha! Ha! In this picture the labels are almost perfectly true to real life. The dye inside however was NOT! Turns out watermelon was a sickly lipstick-coral-orange-pink and would have looked like puke next to the turquoise. Since I had already dipped the tip of the yarn in it I knew I would have to do something ... so I added a pinch of Garnet to it and ended up with a dark rusty red-brown. Rats! Not the light feminine counterpoint I was aiming for, to be sure!
Surely a color like Silver Birch would be a luminescent grey to soften and balance things out, right? Wrong!! Turns out Silver Birch is the color of trees at midnight on a moonless night! I pulled the skein out fast but it was pretty dark! Hrrmph! Soooo I added a half cap of Cornflower Blue, hoping to get ... well, at this point I don't know what I was hoping to get, just something that didn't look like ink! Fortunately I only dipped the tip into this brew - darker than NAVY!!! I dumped it down the drain and made a new batch of just Cornflower, which, by the way, is actually just a Royal Blue. I overdyed the midnight and at least ended up with a dark Slate Blue. With washing it may mellow into a slightly softer hue but at least the entire project wasn't ruined. I can't say I hate the colors - but this was one time scientific progress fizzled!! Here it is drying in the sun:
It really isn't quite so red. It dried fairly quickly so I brought it back into the house to re-establish the skein so I could put it on the swift and then wind it. It took a few minutes since you can only re-form a few strands at a time without making a hoarry mess, but just to prove it's possible I took these pics. The colors are not accurate!
It's weird how it looks like there's more rusty red than dark blue. I know from winding it that there ARE sections that go Turquoise-Rusty Red-Turquoise-Rusty Red - Turquoise- Dark Blue. In spite of everything I'm looking forward to casting on a sock this week just to see how it will knit up! Ah! The foibles of love!! Here is the ball, wound and ready to roll! The colors are fairly accurate!
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