My fiber friends and I decided to have a dye day. What FUN! We did some natural dyeing and a bit of chemical dyeing. We had three pots on the stove steaming up coreopsis and dock, three crock pots crocking daylily and jars of acid dyes, a microwave waiting in the wings and before long there was beautifully colored yarns hanging in the trees drying in the wind. We totally confused the little hummingbird who was used to having the area all to itself. Poor little thing tried to enter the garage area to see what all the ruckus was about then decided against it and just sat in the tree watching all the commotion, chirping at us occasionally.
Since I do lots of natural dyeing, I decided to play in the chemical dyes. My first dye selection was some light brown romney handspun for socks. The 3 color jar method produced this gorgeous yarn. It amazed me that we were able to get the color sequence so close since one hank was dyed then set out to dry. After re-adjusting the colors, the 2nd hank was dipped into the jars. Boy, do I have friends with great abilities, or what?
After the jar method, we added color to the crock pot and used the ball method (don't ask, just enjoy). My selection was handspun mohair from Fairy Tale Farms in Texas (hi Darlene!) It was originally a gorgeous natural white color, but I had visions of a lacy scarf in muted variegations. Into the pot and this is what came out. Lovely as it is, screaming pink just isn't my color, so the plans are to overdye it using the same method, but this time changing the color. I'll let you know what happens!And my final entry of the day was a method I'd heard of but had never tried. I machine knitted solid colored sock yarn and then handpainted it. Since th
e knitting machine decided to be temperamental and broke my yarn after 118 rows, I decide to dye that piece in a solid color for the ribbing, heel flap and toes on my soon-to-be-socks. I am now going to unravel the yarn and hand knit it. These tootsie certainly won't be identical, but shoots, who cares.
e knitting machine decided to be temperamental and broke my yarn after 118 rows, I decide to dye that piece in a solid color for the ribbing, heel flap and toes on my soon-to-be-socks. I am now going to unravel the yarn and hand knit it. These tootsie certainly won't be identical, but shoots, who cares.Boy, now I have a lot of knitting to do, but tell me.....what girl can't use another pair (or two) of socks?
3 comments:
Pretty colors! I agree with you about the pink, though.
I have heard about dyeing machine-knit yarn and then unraveling it--looks like fun.
Looks like y'all had a fun day playing with colors. Now I can't wait to see your socks when you reknit your color strip. I bet your little hummer was eyeballing that pink dyepot wondering how he could get a sip!! christy
Interesting to know.
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