Do you ever have a knitting or crochet pattern you want to work on, and you just can’t find the right color or shade of yarn?
Yeah, me neither. There are too many gorgeous yarns out there to be stuck for long! Nevertheless, sometimes the dyes call to me. And, so, here is the Very Unscientific method I use for occasional forays into applying color to string.
Note: when using the acid dyes, it’s important that your dye pot and all the utensils are used only for this purpose and never food preparation. That includes your microwave, if you choose to do the plastic wrap/microwave steam method. I use clean glass canning jars for the soaking (and some dye methods), and a second-hand crock pot from Goodwill. For now, I’m using paper cups to mix my dye solutions, but I plan to start making stock dye solutions, and for that I’ll use canning jars. I cover my work surface with a plastic garbage bag. One should also wear a mask & gloves while working with powdered dyes.
First I soak my yarn in tepid water and some white vinegar. I don’t measure.
I let that sit for an hour or so. It can go longer, but I don’t usually plan this stuff far enough in advance.
Meanwhile, I decide on colors. This time around, I decided to go for a golden yellow, so I pulled out three paper cups and mixed up solutions in varying shades of yellow and golden ochre. (To get a darker color, I used a bit more of the dye powder.) Again, I didn’t measure. And I don’t have photos of this step. Anyway, I mix the powder with hot water (should probably boil, but I’m lazy) and a glug of white vinegar.
What? “Glug” is a totally valid unit of measurement in the Very Unscientific method.
My next step is to take the yarn out of the soaking solution and squeeze it gently to remove some of the water. It should still be wet, just not swimming. I layer it in the crock pot and start pouring the dye solution randomly over the yarn, moving the yarn around with my fingers (wear disposable gloves) until the dye is taken up. I start with the darkest color, then move down to the lightest.
The photo below shows the yarn after all the dye solution has been added. At this point, there is once again enough liquid to cover the yarn.
Set the crock pot to high, put the lid on, and walk away. After a while, I check to see if all the color has been exhausted. I don’t time it. I just try not to let it cook to the point where it smells like cooked yarn, you know? No? Well, you’ll know it when you smell it, trust me.
After this, I just let it cool, then rinse with a bit of wool wash or a couple of drops of Dawn dish soap, then lay it out to dry. I was lucky to get a sunny day this time.
Ta da! 480 yards of fingering weight sock yarn (90% superwash merino/10% nylon).
I couldn’t resist starting to knit with it immediately:
This is the beginning of the Citron shawl. I am a crap knitter, so please do ignore that mess at the beginning there.
I’ve got 10 skeins of undyed yarn coming in the next few days, so I’m planning on some epic yarn dyeing sessions and these will appear in my shop in the next several weeks.
Hallo! Been busy around here… coughing my head off, working, couch potato-ing. Exhausting. Especially that last one.
Thought I’d share these little frames I made a while back. They’re crocheted onto a round form — in this case they’re embroidery hoops that I found at St. Vincent dePaul’s thrift shop.
This is dead easy and takes virtually no time at all. I followed the pattern found here: Mary Go Round crochet flower ring tutorial.
The hot pink yarn is Stitch Nation Full o’ Sheep and I’ve forgotten what the purple one is. I haven’t figured out what to put in them yet… they even look cute just on the wall by themselves. I also thought that if I could find mirrors in the right size and figure out how to attach them to the backs, these would make good frames for those.
Okay, back to coughing and loafing around watching X Files.
I’ve been thinking lately about my crafts and how I always feel like whatever I’m making needs to have a purpose. Either I’m spinning yarn that someone will use in other crafts, crocheting or knitting hats or scarves, making stitch markers or other things for the shop… it’s like I can’t give myself permission to waste time. Oh sure, I can waste plenty of time in a gazillion other ways, so why not with my creativity?
So, I set out this weekend to do a bit of needle felting for no purpose other than making something cute and useless.
Pretty cute! And wholly useless! Except that it is cute and it makes me happy.
And, see, even after I made this, my mind was full of useful things that I could have been making — felted stitch markers? Cat toys filled with catnip? (Okay, I’m actually going to do that second one. I have three cats that need distractions, yo.)
But first, I made another heart:
Here is part two of the Homespun experiment… I carded the fiber from the Homespun skein with some peachy colored Merino:
Here’s a little sample spun from the batt:
It’s just okay. I only did one pass through the carder, and maybe should at least do two passes to blend the fibers together better.
What should I try next? Corespun?
I’ve about given up trying to get a good photo of this yarn. It’s so shiny and… and… shiny. Anyhoo, here’s the type of project my fevered brain cooks up when I’m sick and stuck at home for days on end.
I give you… Lion Brand Homespun yarn, re-spun. (This color is called “corinthian”.) I took about two ounces of the original yarn, removed the strings and re-spun it into two singles which I then plied together. My final yarn is 1.6 oz. and about 92 yards (I had a little bit of one of the singles left over, shown in the foreground of the photo.)
Why do this? I don’t know… why not? The color choices can be interesting, and despite the shine, the end result is kind of nifty. I wouldn’t generally choose to use Homespun the way it comes, but I could see re-spinning the whole thing and using the nice, smooth 2-ply yarn for something. Also, if I can spin it even thinner, I could probably at least double the yardage of the original skein.
Part two of my experiment is going to be taking some of the Homespun fiber (strings removed) and carding it with other wool and fibers into a batt.
I deliberately chose this color because it’s so vibrant and I wanted to see what would happen, but I think if I do this again, I’ll choose one of the more subtle painterly colors.
Stay tuned for part two – the results of the carded batt!
I might have mentioned before how much I love this color combination…
For some reason, it’s always like 11pm when I decide to make a treasury on Etsy, and then I stay up way too late finishing them. I just love the colors in this one, and I found a few local (to me) sellers to feature:
This is a cool little widget from Craft Cult!
Stitch markers!
Several years ago, I got on a beading kick… and ended up with a pile of beads and some very, very mediocre bracelets. Let us speak no more of the bracelets. Lost interest in it as a hobby and all my beads languished in a box. Disorganized and sad. I couldn’t bring myself to part with many of them, though, because they’re just so pretty.
I even learned how to make glass beads and those are… really not pretty. Let us speak no more of them, either.
ANYWAY, I finally fixed on stitch markers as a way to put my pile of beads to use and let them see the light of day. I’m selling them in my Etsy shop and will have them at Meet Your Maker in December.
I like pretty stitch markers, rather than those plastic rings they sell at the craft stores. To me, reaching a nice looking marker is like a tiny reward for finishing a round or section. And I need all the motivation I can get when I’m struggling with my knitting, believe me!
First things first…
Whoo hoo!
My fuzzy little cloche hat won a blue ribbon at the county fair! This was in the crochet category, and I honestly was not expecting to receive a ribbon. After reading a story in the paper about some of the exquisite fiber arts, I almost didn’t even take it in… but, yay!
So, that was a nice result for my first time out. Will probably try again next year, if I can make something nice by then.
Here’s a scarf I started with some of my handspun:
"Arachne's Tears"
I spun this yarn during Tour de Fleece and started to make something else with it, but just wasn’t loving it. I think this pattern is showcasing the yarn nicely, though.
closer… closer…
Here’s what I started to knit with that yarn:
Age of Brass & Steam Kerchief
My knitting is so crappy. This pattern is really nice (and easy for someone like me who hasn’t really honed her knitting skills after all this time… derrrr…), but I think I would like it better in a thinner yarn. Still I am determined to finish this one.
Corespun yarn is made by taking a strand of thread or yarn — in my case I used cotton crochet thread — and wrapping fiber around it. There are some really amazingly beautiful results out there if you look through Flickr, and I was inspired by some fiber I received as a Christmas present from Mama & Papa Wolf in these gorgeous blues, greens and purples.
When it first came off the bobbin, I didn’t much like it, but after looking at the photo, I think I do. The colors are kind of selling it for me. It’s so different from what I usually try to spin and I only did a very small amount. I’ll have to try to work it into a project somehow… maybe stripes in a hat made with another similar weight yarn.
Craftgawker
Etsy Mini
