I'm A Slacker

So I really was going to dye up some mohair,  but can't seem to find it anywhere :/   So I waited until I had everything I needed to dye with the acid dyes that I received.  Because I'm a big scaredy cat I first decided to dye some yarn I received as a gift with direct orders to throw it in the dyepot.  It's a nice blue, but much to bright for my taste.

I put one skein in the pot and added some purple and black.   I like it better now and plan to knit me a hat with it.

I put the second skein in the dyepot and used only black.  I plan to knit a hat for Ruben with it.

After these two skeins I got feeling ambitious, with some help from liquid courage.  I decided it was time to dye the sock yarn.  First I wrote LOVE using black dye on it....

Then I smooshed it all down using my GLOVED fingers, only to find out that my left glove had holes in two of the fingers...

I then filled in with the purple dye, which in my either excitement or buzzed stupor, promptly forgot to take a picture of.   Oh well time to steam!  Steamed it for 30 minutes and let it cool.  It took forever to cool down.  I then opened it up and promptly forgot to take a picture again before I ran off to rinse it.   I let it dry and FINALLY remembered to take a picture of it....

I really like the way all of them came out.  I'm now hoping to get a few more colors to mess around with.   Now to just figure out what socks I will be knitting with it.  It will of course be a pattern out of the book I received in the gift.

NEW STUFFS!!!! aka Squeeeeeeeeeeee

So today a package from someone wonderful arrived in the mail today.  It contained Sock Innovation by Cookie A, a skein of KP Gloss in Bare,  and 2 bottles of Jacquard dye in Purple and Jet Black. 

squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I have been wanting to play with acid dyes but haven't been able to so far.  Now my big chance has arrived!

Knitter's/Dyer's Porn:

 

When I opened the box my first thought was LOVE!  So my idea is to dye the yarn purple,  and write LOVE on the skein in black.  I have no idea how this should be done so that the black doesn't just blend in with the purple,  so my day will be spent doing research on this.    I can't wait!!   Also,  today was planned to dye some mohair with wilton's black.  Hopefully I'll get some nice breaking.

Over Dyeing Bacon Yarn

So I broke out the Wilton's, divided up the yarn I had left from the Bacon Shawl (see previous post) and over dyed it using Violet, Black and Delphinium Blue.  After consulting the brutally honest hoars it was decided that the shawl should be over dyed in Black.   It's soaking now so press your thumbs for me.   I'll post when it's finished.  Until then, a picture of the samples....

Unscientific Science of Dyeing

So I have gotten a few comments (not here, but in emails and pm's) about how I'm not very scientific about the dyeing I have been doing.  I'm not stressing it.  I only do it for fun, not profit and a little chaos never killed anyone.  For those wanting a step by step guide with precise amounts of yarn, coloring, vinegar and specific times, this is probably not the blog to be reading.  This is for fun only.  I'm not mass marketing or selling anything I dye, and have no plans to.   This could change of course but let's be realistic, IF I did find a way to get consistent results every time it would probably be in my best interest if I were going to sell it to not share all my secrets.  So that being said.....

I did another round of breaking Wilton's using using Delphinium Blue on KP Bare Merino.   I didn't measure anything.  Just a glub of vinegar in the soaking water with some yarn, some Wilton's, crockpot for an hour added about a teaspoon of vinegar another hour, added a teaspoon more vinegar,  set over night to cool, hung to dry. 

Results:  A bit too pastel colored for me, but Wilton's broke nicely.

Remember the kool-aid dyeing I did?  It got knitted up into the Annis Shawl by Susanna IC.   I hate it.  Not the design, but the colors.  I think it looks like bacon and I'm not a big fan.   Since I don't know anyone I dislike enough to give them a bacon colored shawl I decided to take the yarn I had left over and attempt to over dye it with Wilton's.  I have 3 colors that I will try out on it and see what happens.  Black, Delphinium Blue and Violet.  I'll post when they're finished.   But for a now, a picture of the Bacon Annis.

Breaking Wilton's

So I've been wanting to break Wilton's for awhile now after seeing all the beautiful yarn everyone has been getting in the What A Kool Way to Dye group.   An amazingly awesome person hunted down Wilton's for me since I couldn't find it in my area and sent me Black, Delphinium Blue and Violet.  (Thanks Jenarita!)  I've looked around and there's really no step by step directions on how to do this so I threw caution to the wind and grabbed up some KP Bare Merino I had left over from Ruben's Sweater. 

I was not at all scientific about it,  I didn't measure much of anything, but I was having fun!   I soaked the yarn (approx. 30 yards) in some room temp. water with a glub of vinegar for about an hour.

Then I mixed up a bit of Wilton's black in hot water,  I'm guessing 1/16 of a teaspoon, then added room temp water to the mix,  about 5 cups water total and about a 1/2 tsp of vinegar.  I squeezed out the water from the yarn, placed it in the crockpot,  poured the dye mix over it, turned the crockpot to low and let it cook for about an hour.   I then placed about a tablespoon of vinegar into the water and let it cook another hour.  Shut off the crockpot and went to bed.   In the morning I rinsed the yarn out in room temp. water and hung it to dry.  
I think I used too much dye for the amount of yarn because it came out REALLY dark.   But it did break and you can see the different colors.  Can't wait to do it again!    And here's the result.

A Nice Surprise

I had some old Paton's Classic Wool laying around, it was an abomination.  Bright teal colored and I couldn't think of anything to use it for.  I had been using it to practice lace patterns that I thought looked a bit complicated,  but that was all.   After my semi success with the KP I decided to over dye it using just Black Cherry to see how that came out.  Nothing thrilling,   I didn't take before picture and I didn't take after pictures of the skein since it was just and experiment. 
I ended up knitting the yarn into a Deep Sea Flower Dice Bag for Ruben.

As I said, nothing spectacular.  But.... I had tied the skein with some yarn from a sweater I'm making for Bryan.  It's KP's Wool of the Andes in the Mist color.  There I got a pleasant surprise. 

The gray went a lovely reddish brown color.   I wondered what I would do with the leftovers, and now I know!

Dying to Dye

So I was asked numerous times how exactly I dyed the yarn with kool-aid, so here's a step by step mostly with pictures.  (I forgot to take a few)

Yarn: Knitpicks Bare Merino/Silk lace weight 
Dye: Kool-aid Brand unsweetened drink mix.  2 packets of Lemonade (yellow), Orange (orange), Solar Strawberry Starfruit (pink). 1 packet of Grape (purple). 1/2 packet of Lemon-Lime (green) and 2 1/2 packets of Black Cherry (red).

Step 1 - Presoak:  I soaked the yarn for about an hour in cold water with a small squirt of Ivory dishsoap.

Step 2 - Lemonade Flavor: I used 2 packets of lemonade in cold water, then added the yarn and filled the bowl so that the yarn was covered.  Nuked in the microwave for 2 minutes, let rest for 5 and giving it a VERY gentle stir, repeated this until the water was clear.  Removed the yarn from the micro, and let it cool to room temp and prepared the mix for step 3.  I wanted the water to be room temp to try to prevent any felting.
As you can see the yellow didn't take evenly, but I wasn't overly concerned since I would be doing a lot of over dyeing.

Step 3 - Orange Flavor: Repeated step 2 except water was room temp instead of cold.  This time I didn't submerge all the yarn I kept out about 7 inches.  I let this part dangle into another bowl to catch drippings. My original plan was to fold the skein in half and submerge the ends, but I got all excited and forgot, so it was one end hanging out.   Still trying to not panic over the uneven dyeing.  This time I decided to pour the yarn into a shallow cake pan to try to speed up a bit the cool down time. 

Step 4 - Pink Flavor: Repeat of Step 3, not submerging another 4 or so inches of the yarn.  This step I forgot to get a picture of, but you will be able to see some of the pink in the next photos.    It looks a lot like clown barf still.

Step 5 - Red Flavor: Repeat of Step 4, took out another 4 inches or so. 

Step 6 - Purple Flavor: I decided since there was such a small amount of yarn left  that I would cut back to 1 packet.  Leaving about 4" in the dyebath.   I also forgot to take a picture of this step.  At this time everything is still bright and I wanted to tone it down a bit. 

Step 7 - Green Flavor:  I went with a 1/2 a packet for the whole skein.   I didn't want to actually add green just something to tone down the colors.  When it was finished I wasn't happy with it, but decided to see what it looked like when it was dry.

And once it was dry:

I didn't like it, I wanted them to blend better, and didn't care much for the extreme light colors.  I talked to a couple people and decided to do another 1/2 packet of grape.  But at the last minute I got paranoid because I didn't want the light parts to turn out purple so went with a 1/2 packet of black cherry. 
Once it cooled down I rinsed it really well, then put it into a bowl of water with a squirt of hair conditioner then rinsed complete.  Making sure the water runs clear.

The end result can be seen in the previous post.   I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Adventures in Flavored Drink Mix

So I have made an attempt at dyeing my own yarn using Kool-aid.  I'm pretty happy with the results and plan to try it again.  I wanted something that was autumn colors.  I used 6 different colors, yellow, orange, pink, red, purple and green.  The green was used at the end and only a 1/2 packet to help darken the colors.   At this point I wasn't thrilled with the results.

I didn't think the light spots blended well or that they looked very autumn-ish.  So I decided to over dye it one more time using red again but this time only a half packet for the whole skein.  I am much happier with the end result.

and in a pretty little cake. (I think this picture is truer to the color)

Today I will cast on using this yarn for Annis by Susanna IC.

Putting forth an effort

So I have had this blog for a long time and yet never done anything with it.  I think it's about time I start blogging about just how boring my life really is.  I'm going to avoid anything that doesn't pertain to my knitting on this blog.   So yeah it's going to be pretty boring. 
I'm absolutely in love with Ravelry.   I have learned a lot since joining that site and seems that every day I learn something new.  I have knit for about 5 years now and didn't become really active on Ravelry until about a year ago.  In that year I learned more about knitting than I did in the previous 4 years.  I find for the most part people are supportive and always willing to help.
In a couple of days, I'll work on listing projects I have on the needles and figure out where exactly I'm going with this rambling.