Year of projects- In which you get to see how the dyeing went

The yarn is out of the dye pot, dry and ready to use. It went from this:

To this:

I am really pleased with the colour, it is a lovely red wine shade. I use this colour a lot, in fact I have a hat and socks on the needles and several past projects in a similar colour. It is also the colour I had in mind for dying the Hemlock ring blanket. It seems to be evenly dyed so using the enormous pot was worth it.

Next week I will be swatching for my cardigan, that's right, I am planning to make a swatch! I have worked through quite a bit of the yarn already and still have lots of the year to go so I am going to work on this project slowly in between other things.

Year of projects- In which the yarn is in the dye pot

Literally as I type the yarn is on its journey from undyed to dyed.

To accommodate the 820g needed for the cardigan I have used possibly the largest pot in the world, it covers my entire stove and has two hob tops going under it to get it hot.

I am trying out some new dyes this time, so I will report back when I have rinsed the yarn. I have also tried using citric acid rather than vinegar to avoid making the house smell. I am using a mix of red and black to hopefully give a burgundy shade.

I had a few doubts about whether I would even be able to get it up to temperature, but it seems to have worked. The heating is done and I am waiting for it to cool. It looks as though all the dye has been absorbed but I suspect I will have to wait until the morning for it to be cool enough to rinse.

Dye pots

I have been a bit short on blogging material the last couple of days, but I have been up to a few crafty things. I broke out the dye pots and have been doing quite a bit of that. Unfortunately I have now run out of vinegar, and can't go out to get more until the post has been (waiting for a parcel of supplies).

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Since today is a week day I have work to do, but dunking yarn in tubs makes for a nice break and once it is in the oven it takes care of itself.

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Finished yarn should be ready for display soon, in the mean time here's a pretty display of dye pots.

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A whole rainbow of colours, although some are hard to see. I love Doritos salsa pots for mixing dye in. It is possible I eat too much salsa as this time last year I had no dye stuff, and now I have 8 jars. 8 jars in a year? Doesn't sound like much, but I'm sure each one hangs around the fridge for at least a month. Actually it is probably more than 8, I didn't make the connection between the jars and the dye for a while. But recycling is good. And nachos- mmmmmmmm!

I went with the red...

As you can see from the photo below, I went for the red on my handspun. This was for two reasons- first all the lovely encouragement I had, and second black can be dyed over red if it was a disaster, but not the other way round!

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I mixed some black into the red dye to get a nice dark colour, not an in your face red. It is maybe a little darker than intended, but I am still pleased with it (and have since realised that I obviously like this colour a lot, I have a carpet, sofa cover, curtains and jumper all in a very similar shade!).
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There was no felting during the dyeing, and the colour took nice and evenly (the slightly shiny bits in the photo are just on the ties around the skein). This was a massive relief as I was very nervous about it, and accidentally boiled it during the dye process through not paying enough attention and the difficulties of temperature control on electric hobs- thank Bob for the low felting tendencies of Suffolk fibre!
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I saved the tiny skein in natural colour, a good wash cleared up a bit more of the grey, there may even be an attempt at a colour work Christmas decoration.
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The red has been balled and is already in the process of being knitted up, it will just be a plain ribbed beanie type hat. I had intended to spin a thick yarn to make the spinning and knitting faster, but it seems I struggle with that, it is about DK weight, not the aran/chunky I had pictured!

Technique- residual dye reduction (and some ramblings)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It is not celebrated over here in the UK, but I like the idea of it, so I thought I would join in a little. I am thankful for you lovely people who pop by to read my ramblings and leave comments, for knitting and for lots of lovely things both fiber related and non in my life.

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On a more fibrey note, I had a genius idea (so modest!) a few weeks back when I was having a dying frenzy. Residual dye is a PITA, it takes ages and lots of water to clean out. The idea was to cook the dye pot until it is about done, then to chuck in a spare chunk of undyed fibre that I had floating around and cook for a little longer.

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The undyed fluff slurps up the leftover, reducing the amount of residual. One piece can also be used a couple of times as long as the colours are similar (red fluff into a dye pot of yellow is going to make some shade of orange I suspect, even if the red looks fixed). This piece of fluff went through a blue pot and a mixed purples pot. As a bonus you get a small piece of interestingly coloured fibre to play with.

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I had a second pot of blue but had run out of undyed fibre, so I chucked a swatch in instead (evidence that I do occasionally, but very rarely, make a swatch). Ideally I would have planned ahead and soaked these items, but since it was a spur of the moment thing I didn't, even unsoaked it worked quite nicely.

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This was my first try at dying a preknitted piece, I was quite pleased with how it came out, although that may have been because it was just a simple square.

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I also did something that shows I am truly addicted to knitting- yesterday I did no knitting all day, just to show that I could (I am told giving up anything for a day/month or two, to prove you can is a sure sign of addiction). I got quite a lot of tidying done, but today I am back on the needles. Meh, there are worse things to be addicted to, it is cheaper than drugs! (possibly- scowls at expensive yarns)

More dyeing adventures- oven dyeing

I have been doing lots of dyeing lately, because of this I decided to try out a new technique- oven dyeing. The presoaked yarn is put in a baking tray (a deep one) with enough water and vinegar to just cover it, then dyes are poured on and smooshed about. The tray is covered with foil and put in the oven for about 40 minutes. It is left to cool then washed and dried as usual.

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There were a couple of reasons for trying this-

• It is less messy than wrapping in cling film and steaming, I always get leaks!
• The pans and foil are reusable, whereas the cling film gets binned
• I can get two pans in the oven at a time, dyeing 200g but only 100g in the steamer pot.

There were a few problems with the method. The superwash yarn and fibres I used slurp up the dye pretty quickly, leaving you with white bits, especially on the bottom. And no one wants a white bottom!

I found that plenty of smooshing with a spoon helped, also turning the fibre/yarn over and adding half the dye to the bottom was effective if a little messy (plenty of old newspaper all round to catch the drips). If all else fails call it intentional!

The other problem I had was with the pans I bought. I initially got some solid metal trays in preference to foil ones as I was worried about the foil bending when it was full (which it does). This was ok, but I don't think they appreciated sitting overnight full of vinegery water as the fibre cooled. Rust patches started to develop, and I have been told rust can affect how the colours come out.

As a solution I am currently using foil trays sat in the now slightly rusty pans. This works quite well as there is less water to heat as the foil pans are smaller (saves energy) and the solid metal pans stop the foil bending and dye going all over the carpet. Also if the dye tray does bubble over a little it goes into the second pan rather than all over the oven.

This picture shows close up of the yarn in the dye, it looks so pretty, I think it is even better when it is wet than when it is dry, all shiny. Maybe I need to experiment with different base yarns! The grabbiness of the superwash can be seen here in the fact the blue and purple are sat next to each other with almost no bleeding.

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Dyeing adventures- alpaca and nylon

I bought some thick sock yarn off the Internet, but as always there is the peril of colour choices. What I thought from the photo was dark grey, undyed and hot pink turned out to be dark green, yellow and reddish pink. I have to say I was not in love with it, and I had 200g!

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My first response to "meh I don't like this colour" is "oh well I can always dye it". The problem here was that this is an alpaca and nylon mix, I had never dyed either of those before, and I had heard alpaca will felt if you look at it crossly.

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Since I really couldn't think of anything to make with the yarn I figured I would give it a go on one ball and see what happened. I skeined both and dunked one in a pot of blue dye.

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Woohoo! No felting and the nylon didn't melt (even though the pot got rather hot and may have boiled a little, I am not sure what the melting point of nylon is). The dyeing was not a total success- the colours are still not quite what I hoped for, but I think they are an improvement. This is most likely due to the high nylon content which is unaffected by the acid dyes, all the fluffy alpaca fibres are now a nice bright blue.

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I still don't know what to make, it is meant to be a sock yarn, so maybe socks, but there are quite a lot of fluffy alpaca fibres sticking out of the yarn, so it may be somewhat tickly.

FO Friday- Squares and show entries

FO for this week was dip dyeing some DK yarn in a raspberry colourway and using it to make two 8 inch squares.

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The first is a simple mitred square:

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The second used the Pie crust pattern by Sarah Bradberry, Rav link here.

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I had some village show entries that I can't count as 52 in52 projects under my own rules because they did not really take long enough to make, so I am putting their pictures in here.

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First up origami crane earrings following the directions on this site.

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They are teeny and pretty fiddly to make, but worth it.
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There was also a greetings card category, I made two as I couldn't decide which one to go for.

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I took a family vote, they opted for entering this one, which turned out to be a good choice
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I do quite like this one for its artsiness though. The crochet flowers are from the pattern for A maiden's glory headdress, on Rav here.
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And finally the sock yarn blanket square, hand dyed yarn.
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Techniques- Dip dyeing, single colour, multiple shades

I recently discovered the fun that is dip dyeing, and having tried to describe the process in words to someone I thought I would share photos of the process with you this week.

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First up prepare your yarn- tie the skein in several places then soak it. It needs to be good and soggy to avoid white patches so be generous with the time you soak it for. Give it an hour or so, it can usually even be left over night- some fibres, like silk, need a lot of soaking.

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Once it is well soaked, lift it carefully out of the water and squeeze it gently to let some of the excess water out.
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Prepare your dye bath with enough water for the yarn to swim around and whichever dye you want to use according to the instructions, as these vary I will not go in to them here. If required by your dye add vinegar to the pot.
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Bring the dye bath to a simmer.

Wrap your soggy yarn around a stick that is longer than the top of your dye bath is wide (or a wooden spoon/fork is good as the flat surface of the spoon stops the stick rolling).

(The cider in the photo is not for drinking while dyeing, it just happened to be in the kitchen when I took the photo).
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Sit the stick across the top of the dye bath and unravel the first section of yarn into the dye. This will be the darkest section, how much you want to unravel is entirely up to you.
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At intervals unwind a little more yarn into the pot. Each section should come out lighter than the previous one. This one was done in four intervals, each two minutes apart, but again that is up to you depending how you want the yarn to look.
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Unless you want a white section to the end of the yarn drop the final length of yarn into the pot and give it a gentle swirl with the stick to get it under the surface. If you leave the last stage too long there will not be much dye left in the pot and it will come out very pale. That might be what you want, but if not don't leave it too long.
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Leave the pot to simmer to set the dye. This should be about fifteen minutes but may depend on the make of dye.
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Take the pot off the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Rinse the yarn then squeeze out the excess water and allow to dry (as for handpainting).

Twist into a pretty skein and take artistic photos on the lawn (this stage is optional :D).

Plan what to knit/gift/sell skein.

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Next dyeing adventure should be dipping for multiple colours so watch out for that one.

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I would love to see what you make if you follow this tutorial, please leave a link in the comments to pictures so I can see (why yes, I am nosy! :D).

FOs- Dyeing and a mini square

The FO Friday this week comes from the future. Not as exciting as it sounds really, just that the FO for week 4 out of 52 is a gift for some one so I don't want to post it up here yet. As the goodies for week 5 ou of 52 are done I thought I would share those instead.

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At the start of the week I decided to have a bit of a dyeing session. I am enjoying spinning at the minute so went for jazzing up some of my undyed fibre. I also found a good tutorial online for plaiting roving, am quite pleased with how they look all neatly plaited up.

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I thought I was down to my last two undyed sock yarns, which I already have a plan for so was pleased to find a 100g merino superwash sock lurking in a bag (now I really am out of supplies :( ). This is the result of my first ever dip dye attempt.

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Very pleased with the purple but left the last section a little long before dunking it so it is quite pinky.
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Greenhouse dyed fibre:
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Sock yarn blanket square 4/52 for the year:
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Techniques- Oven dyeing fibre

Have been wanting a way to cut down on my clingfilm use, increase the amount of fibre and I can dye and limit felting problems. This oven dyeing tutorial has definite possibilities so am saving the page. When I have given it a go I might do my own set of photos if it all works out.

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.

Book review- The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook

This week I am going with a book review. I am a HUGE fan of crafty books, so have plenty of material for these.

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I mentioned The Twisted Sister's Sock Workbook by Lynne Vogel in my handpainting post last week. I bought it for info about dyeing and spinning mainly, with the bonus of some sock patterns thrown in.

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The section on dyeing has been excellent, it is where I have got most of my handpainting knowledge from. There's a decent amount about different colours and mixing as well as techniques for hot and cold pour dyeing. The methods deal with fibre, but work just as well for yarn. It is an American book, but the dyes can either be substituted for other brands of acid dyes (or in fact any dye) or the ones used in the book can be ordered online.

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The section on spinning is good, although not what I was hoping for. Details about organising fibre to get the best from the colours are given but no actual details on how to spin.

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The final section deals with knitting socks in a brilliant way. A simple sock pattern is given, then followed up with ways each section (cast on, bind off, ribbing, heel, toes) can be done differently to enable you to get socks exactly how you want them to be. Instructions for knitting socks flat are also given.

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This is a book that has already had quite a lot of use, and is one that I go back to. It would be a good choice for someone wanting to have a go at dyeing or wanting to start making socks without following a specific pattern, maybe as a basis for designing socks. Definately worth the money.

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I wanted to post a photo of the book, but I was not sure about the issues with taking a picture as it is coprighted material. A quick google suggested it would be ok, but in the interest of not getting in trouble I thought I would stick with an Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Twisted-Sisters-Sock-Workbook-Designing/dp/1931499160/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276585546&sr=8-1

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To brighten up the post, a picture of some hand dyed, hand spun, hand knit socks which owe a lot to the book:

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Techniques- Handpainting yarn

For this week's technique post I thought I would try my hand at writing one myself. As promised yesterday there are a lot of photos. The method I use comes from a combination of The Twisted Sister's Sock Workbook by Lynne Vogel and The yarn lover's guide to hand dyeing by Linda La Belle.

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The example here was the merino and silk laceweight yarn, dyed with Jacquard acid dyes.

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First you need some yarn to dye, it can be undyed as here, or you can overdye a paler colour with darker ones.

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Untwist the skein and check the number of ties, you need at least four, more is better as it reduces tangling during the dyeing. If there are only a few add some more by looping undyed yarn in a figure of eight pattern across the width of the skein (avoid dyed yarn as some colour may transfer, I used blue ties in this example as I was dyeing the yarn blue anyway).

Put the yarn to soak in a large bowl of water, it will need to be fully saturated before you start dyeing so will need at least an hour, longer for silk.

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Mix up your dyes according to the instructions, these vary by dye type so will not cover them here. The acid dyes need to stand for an hour after mixing which corresponds nicely with the soaking yarn.

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Lay out a sheet of clingfilm on your work surface. Lift the yarn from the bowl of water and allow the excess to run away. Spread the wet yarn out on the clingfilm. Spread the yarn out as much as possible to make the dyeing easier.
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Start applying the dye to the yarn, I used sponges as you can see in the picture. How much you apply, colours, how you apply it etc all depend on the effect you want, experimenting is the best way to find out (although remember you can only overdye with a darker colour).
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When you are happy with the top you need to carefully turn the yarn over and apply more dye to the back as there will be patches that have not soaked through (unless that is the effect you are after).
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Once you are happy with the dye use a spray bottle to lightly spray vinegar (or other fixing acid) over the top surface of the yarn. There is no need to spray both sides. (I have forgotten this step a few times, and although fixable it tend to get very messy!).

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Place a second sheet of clingfilm over the top of the yarn and press together with the sheet below. Wrap the parcel with clingfilm a few times, I tend to do three wraps to minimise risk of leakage, do not make this too tight or the parcels will pop when steamed.
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For easier movement the yarn parcel can be folded into a small stack.
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Prepare your steamer. If you are not using food dyes this should be kept separate from food pans. The steamer needs to be lifted a few inches above the water level. I put about two inches of water in the base of the pan shown, stack up two glass ramekins (free ones from Gu souffles in the reduced section of the supermarket, nomnomnom) in the middle of the pan and balance the steamer on top of that.
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Arrange the yarn parcel on top of the steamer, try to avoid having parts sitting on top of other bits, a coil or an S shape work well.
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Set the heat going and steam for 20-30 minutes. The clingfilm will puff up, showing the yarn has got hot enough (if the clingfilm was not completely sealed this may not happen).
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Turn the heat off and leave to cool. This take a long time and is best done overnight. Letting it cool completely gives better colour and much less residual dye to wash out. It is difficult though as the parcels are so tempting but it is definitely worth it.

Once the parcel is cold unwrap it in the sick, bin the clingfilm and let running water flow gently through the yarn to wash away residual dye. This needs to be done very gently to avoid felting,-don't let the tap run straight on to the yarn, direct the flow down the side of the sink.

Once the water is running clear the yarn can be washed in a basin of water with a little wool wash (optional, a tiny bit of fairy liquid or shampoo can also be used).
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After soaking squeeze the excess water out by wrapping the yarn in a towel and squeezing it well. Hang the yarn up to dry. A little dye might still drip out so I usually put an old newspaper underneath if it is hanging over anything important like the bathtub. Once it is dry it is ready to use.
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