Poseidon and Firestarter

Got a killer of a headache today so not much knitting is being done that requires any concentration – or maths! But I can show you the progress I’ve made knitting my new sock yarn as well as my newly dyed fleece and yarn from yesterday’s dyeing sesssion. The fleece hasn’t taken the dye as intensely as I would have liked but I’ll try a different way of dyeing next time to see if I can do better. If anyone knows a surefire way of getting rich colours, I’d be pleased to hear:-)

  

I dyed two more skeins of sock yarn, aiming for more semi-solids than stripes this time as I started knitting the emerald green yarn but it is too stripey for more detailed patterns and just fights it as you can see.

  

The stripes on their own are very nice but the lace is just lost. This sock pattern is called ‘poseidon’ and I even watched the new version of the poseidon adventure while knitting it. Ah, well, all ripped back now.

  

So this aquamarine semi-solid is made especially to handle lace or cabling patterns on socks. I was aiming for these greeny/blue midtones but I think it would be really nice in deeper more peacock or petroly blues as well – yum. Note to self:-)

This one is called pink orchid, lots of subtle tones of pinky reds and plummy purples. Hopefully this will be subtle enough not to be too stripey! No plans for this yarn as yet but I have just got Cookie A’s sock book at the weekend so it may be destined for a complex pair of cookie socks:-) Here’s a good review if you are thinking about buying it. I was recommended it – which is the best review of all!

The orange mango stripey yarn is also being knitted up as we speak – well, when the headache decides to shift:-) On the sock needles at the mo is Firestarter designed by Yarnissima. It uses a self striping or plain yarn and adds cable detailing up the sides of the sock – lovely. It remains to be seen whether my yarn is bordering on too stripey!!

I’ve just started the side cabling but there isn’t much to see as yet. It may well have to be ripped back but I’ll knit a little more first before I decide. Still loving the stripes though:-)

All we need now are some sunny days without rain so I can sit outside and get in some quality knitting time! Enough rain already!

Dyeing stripey sock yarn

No blogging over the last few days has been a sure sign I’ve been busy doing something. Now I have got to the end of this process, I can get some decent pictures to show you just what I’ve been doing. Dyeing stripey sock yarn!! You’ll be very proud of me, I remembered to document each stage as I went. This means though, my post will probably be rather long:-)

 

You may see a slight resemblance in my yarn to some Schoppel-Wolle I bought this week:-) I wanted to know how it was dyed so I analysed the yarn, measured out the stripe sections and started planning my own stripe variations. Then I started winding the yarn into sections for each colour stripe – 9 in all, with the colour reversing at 1 and 9. See, I’ve been working hard!

 

So the yarn is wound, the next step is to soak the yarn to make sure it is degreased (becoming a familiar step to me after all that fleece…). While that is soaking with some synthrapol or some soap powder – to degrease – and the acetic acid (better than white vinegar, no smell) – to prepare the fibres for the dye – I started mixing the colours I wanted. (For wool you use Acid dyes which require heat as the method of fixing. They also need the acetic acid to make the fibres accept the dye when being fixed with heat.)

 

There we go. Nine stripes, nine colours. 5 graded greens and 4 graded red/oranges to contrast. I painted them out to check the tones but paper was too absorbent and left the colours dull so I taped a small pieces of yarn to some card and tested the colours there. Much better. Now all that is left is to decide the order of the colours.

  

I wanted to make a self-striping yarn that meant I didn’t have to change the yarn and get a lumpy seam but also to ensure the stripes would always have a nice contrast. So instead of a subtle gradation, I went for alternated colour grading – dark-green, yellow, green, orange, mid-green, vermillion, lime, red, light-lime, red, lime, vermillion etc…. And because of the way I wound the skeins, this should keep repeating between the dark to light greens and back again till the end of the skein. Cool, huh?

 

So dye ready, check. Yarn soaked long enough, check. Okay time to paint the skeins. There are lots of ways to do this – Kettle dyeing in a pot on the cooker, a slow cooker, painting by hand, dip dyeing etc. but today I want to control the colour process so I am painting by hand. To fix the colour I will steam the yarn which will be wrapped safely in clingfilm inside a re-sealable freezer bag. I have steamed yarn on the cooker and using a microwave and both work well, but since the micro is quicker and causes less condensation in my kitchen, I will be using this method for now:-)

 

Warning – don’t totally seal the freezer bag as it will explode in the microwave:-))))) Leave about an inch gap for the steam to escape!

All skeins painted in order and wrapped in clingfilm. Ready for microwave blasting. I usually blast on full for 30 seconds and leave for about 30 seconds before starting again. In theory your yarn shouldn’t need more than 3-5 mins but I usually find as I use more dye that I probably need that it takes a bit longer for all my excess dye to evaporate. I usually know it is ready when the clingfilm is shrinking and all stuck together:-) and most of the dye has gone from inside the bag. If you are unsure, blast it for another minute or so. I find it better to be safe than sorry. I would rather take more time now than see all my dye run down the sink because I didn’t fix it enough!!!

Warning! – the bag will be very hot!!!! It needs to cool down first before you try to open it. If you have no patience like me, run cold water over the outside and gently prise the cling film apart under the cold tap. Wear marigold gloves to protect your hands and keep your face at a distance! The hot steam will scald if you are too close.

Okay, now you are ready to wash your yarn. There should be very little dye left in the yarn so not much washing is needed. Wash with some gentle hand wash soap powder and wash till the water runs clear. Then gently squeeze out all the excess water and spin in the washing machine. Just spin! No water to agitate the yarn at this stage, we don’t want felted yarn at the last hurdle.

 

And there you are. Skeins ready to hang out to dry. Once they are dry, you can wind them into a ball or skein ready to knit, weave or crochet with, whatever you fancy.

I found my clever winding of the stripey skein back and forwards a bit of a nightmare to unwind. I will have to work out a better method to save me time and agro! But it’s all done and I’ve wound it like the schoppel-wolle balls to compare the two. What do you think? Pretty close?

While I had some dye left, I also painted up a few stripey solids in the orange and green. I do think winding in balls shows off the yarn well.

 

Well, the proof will be in the knitting and I have been knitting away today to see how these yarns knit up. I’m finding it hard to match the yarn to patterns at the moment as they are just a bit too busy for more complex designs. Some pics for you tomorrow on my progress…..

 

Experimental Dyeing

A few weeks ago I started to experiment with dyeing yarn. I’ve done a lot of cold procion dyeing before but it’s been ages since I’ve considered hot dyeing with acid dyes for wool – not since college and that’s going back a bit now!!

So when I did the printing workshop last summer, and had to use acid and direct dyes, it reminded me how much I liked dyeing and layering colour. I began to look at how I could use this in my work – dyeing, yarn, fabric, embroidery threads, fleece…. Imagine spinning all those yummy colours! Too many plans, not enough time!

As I’ve been into hand knit recently, I thought more about dyeing yarn for me to knit with! I started with techniques I’m more familiar with so I dip dyed and space dyed several hanks of 100% merino DK with one hank of 2 ply silk (pink one above). The silk just loves the acid dyes but I was a bit disappointed with the lack of colour intensity in the wool – especially when the acid dye is meant to work especially well with it. I’m sure I used the right amount of dye and white vinegar but some have that white cast you get with cold dyes. I even remembered to prewash to get rid of any grease or remaining lanolin that would act as a barrier…. Am I just being picky? I’ve seen lots of hand painted skeins online that are much more intense in colour and that is what I am aiming for:-(

The next task is to hand paint rather than dip or space dye – microwave at the ready! Maybe I will get better colour retention? You can see in this grey/purple skein that I kind of overdyed it to saturation point, but I do like the subtle hues too. In fact I think this would look lovely as a Gretel Beret(another Ysolda pattern that I haven’t managed to start yet!)

All I need to do now is make sure I do enough of one colour for the pattern! Well, back to the drawing board – I’ll let you know how the hand painted hanks turn out.