Semi-solid attempt #1

The other day I dyed yarn in the oven for the first time, loosely following this tutorial. A lot of people set hand-painted yarn in the microwave, and I have tried this once in the past with not so brilliant results. Since I currently don't have a microwave, and the idea of cooking plastic wrap in any device sort of bothers me, I thought I'd try the oven.

Since I love semi-solid yarns, I attempted to produce some this time. I've done semi-solid tonal colours on the stove, just by virtue of uneven dye distribution - what I mean by tonal is different concentrations of the same colour dye. In this case I wanted to try semi-solid using different colours. The idea was to mix up a few colours of dye, paint them on the yarn, mush it around a bit, and then bake it. I tried to mix up dye solutions that were close variations - not too contrasting or clashing. Unfortunately, dye solutions that are various shades of greeny blue all kind of look black in the jar, and I was too lazy to try the paper towel or flour tests.*



The above photo (sorry about the flash) shows the pre-baked handpainted yarn. As you can see, the colours I made were quite contrast-y. Oops. I decided to bake it and see what happened, even though I didn't think it would turn out semi-solid. I didn't take a picture of the result, but it wasn't to my liking. There was more neon green than I'd hoped, and it looked weird with the blackish-blue. (Neon green is awesome, but I already have socks on the go in that shade, and was looking for something else!) I decided to dye it again, this time on the stove.

And tada!



I over-dyed it blue, and I quite like these results. The blue toned down the neon green and while it's still quite variegated, the colours are less contrasted now. I am curious to see how this knits up. Whether or not this is a semi-solid fail remains to be seen, but I really like it all the same!



This is 100g of 75% wool, 25% nylon sock yarn. Once again, my camera sucks at capturing green. Imagine there are streaks of slightly brighter yellow-green running through this, in addition to the blue-greens.

*Testing a few drops of dye solution on a paper towl or in a small amount of white flour is supposed to give you an idea of what colour the yarn will come out. I'm not sure if this works, since I never do it.

Yarn: Team Sweden?

Armed with a supply of citric acid crystals that may last me for years (provided I don't take up canning or something), I dyed some more yarn the other day! The citric acid was brilliant - no horrible vinegar fumes.



The base is 75% wool, 25% nylon, and it's not super duper soft, but did soften up after dyeing. It feels hard-wearing, so let's hope it is.



I used Wiltons golden yellow and royal blue, and Eunny Jang's tutorial for creating self-striping yarns, so I'm excited to see how it knits up. I plan to do a "vanilla" sock for the first time in my life...



Blue is darker than it appears in this picture, but the yellow is about right.

In my head I've been calling this Team Sweden, because the colours remind me of their national hockey team colours.

Return of the Wiltons

I went diving in my mom's yarn stash when I was home, and came up with some neat stuff. My mom isn't really a Knitter with a capital K (though she did teach me to knit back in the day), but she still has a stash, and lucky for me she is very generous with it.

I walked away with some weird sock yarn.



Gedifra Fashion Trend Sportivo is apparently discontinued, and although I wasn't too keen on the colours of these skeins, I can always use sock yarn.



Thinking this would be a fantastic candidate for overdyeing, I attempted my first hand dyeing since moving to Edinburgh, using some Leaf Green Wiltons icing colour.



It turned green, as hoped, but I'm not sure this counts as a success for a few reasons. First, I had a hard to getting the dye to set and I have lingering fears it might just all wash out later. Secondly, the yarn was really loosely plied to begin with and seems to have unevenly unplied itself in the dye pot. It almost looked like a bouclé yarn when I took it out, so I'm not sure what happened. I tried weighting the skeins when I hung them to dry and that helped a bit, but I'm not really sure how it will knit up. Good thing I'm not heavily invested in this yarn. Has this happened to anyone, and how did you deal with it?



So. A fun experiment that wasn't altogether a success or failure. I want to do some more dyeing soon, but I'll need a bigger pot and I may invest in some citric acid. (I say this every time since I hate the smell of vinegar, but I never get around to it.)

Hazards of kitchen dyeing, or: bundles of sunshine

If you dye yarn in your kitchen and you have housemates, chances are un-crafty housemates will think you are crazy. They might be right.

While I was soaking some white sock yarn in a big pot on the stove, this conversation transpired:

Housemate: I'm going to get some dinner.
Me: Okay, enjoy.
Housemate: Good luck with...er *eyes pot suspiciously* whatever it is you're... uh.. making.

I later found out she thought I was making an obscene amount of noodles. Indeed, white sock yarn in a pot might look a little like a crapload of vermicelli. Then she returned to find the big pot still full of "noodles," only now they were a vibrant shade of yellow... Good times.


Now I have bundles of sunshine and they make me super happy.

The yarn is Elann Sock It To Me 4 ply - a yarn so incredibly cheap, yet fairly highly rated, that I wondered how I'd never come across it before. This was my first Elann ordering experience, and it will not be the last. In a fit of madness I ordered 6 balls, which is enough for 3 pairs of socks. Plus shipping, it came out to just under $20 - the average cost for a hank of reputable sock yarn. At this rate, handknit socks are practically affordable. ;)



Now, I don't know how it will wear, although ravelry users suggest it's pretty good for the price. It's not the softest 4-ply ever - I won't be making any scarves out of it. But it dyed up pretty well, and I'm totally excited about dyeing more. (In truth, I dyed more today: pics forthcoming).



I used Wiltons icing dye in Golden Yellow. I didn't keep track of how much, to be honest. I kept adding until I felt like it was enough. This was also an experiment in using lemon juice as the acid. I've used vinegar before to set food colouring dye, and it has worked okay, but my current house has terrible ventilation, and my bedroom is right off the kitchen, and I hate hate hate the smell of vinegar... so I wasn't willing to try that in this house. I started out with the juice of half a lemon, and by the end I'd added the other half as well, so I hope that was enough. Apparently lemon juice is slightly more acidic than vinegar anyway, which suggests that I wouldn't need as much; I never measured the vinegar I used to use, so this comparison is meaningless to me.

Anyway. Fun experiment. Next time: green that may be slightly more neon than I intended...