Wilton Dyeing

'Twas a very dreary, rainy weekend & I had nothing to do. So I headed off to yonder Michaels and procured a quantity of icing dyes. What follows is a pictorial representation of events. :)

Honey stated that this "looks like a tie-dye exploded!"
But in a good way.

Behold the finished skeins!

The skeins are much lovelier when viewed individually, but I thought this post was already a bit picture heavy.

The 2 skeins on the left are worsted weight and were my 1st skeins dyed. I hand-painted them and then tried to set them by simmering them in a pot. The colors ran too much and muddied, so I ended up overdyeing them. They turned out pretty good considering.

The 2 skeins on top right are fingering weight (sock yarn). They are self-striping and were dyed using the same method as my previous kool-aid dye session.

The 3 skeins on bottom right are hand-painted and were set using the microwave.
I'm really pleased with this batch of dyeing. The wilton dyes are easy to use and blend soooo much better than the kool-aid. The colors are more vibrant as well, although they still pale next to professional acid dyes. However, I don't have a dedicated dye-space, so the non-toxic food coloring will work for me for now.

BTW- I will be off for a few days. Honey & I are going to Seattle on Friday to finally meet Declan and hang out with his parents as well as Honey's brother & family. It's a short trip, only for the weekend, but well worth it. I will be sure to give the rundown when I return! :)

Yet More Talk About Socks

Lately it seems like this block is all socks all the time! :)

I want to thank everyone who helped me pick the yarn for my sockapalooza pal's socks! The overwhelming winner is Sage, with 55% of the vote! I will be ordering the yarn this weekend (yippie for payday!)

In the meantime, I did a bit more Kool-Aid dyeing this weekend using 3 skeins of Knit Pick Bare fingering weight yarn. I did another skein of the blue/green stripes, but with the stripes appearing in a different order.
A skein with Strawberry, Strawberry Lemonade, & Lemonade Kool-Aid, which is self-striping as well.
And a skein of green. If you look closely you will notice subtle variations in the color. I achieved this by placing the skein in a blue-yellow mixture for 5 minutes, then removing the yarn and mixing in lime green. I'm really pleased with it. It's very subtle, but gives more depth to the knit than you would with a solid color! Very happy.
I had to start knitting it right away.
This is the Embossed Leaves Socks by Mona Schmidt from the Winter 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. The lace pattern is very easy and it is knitting up very quickly! These will mostly likely go to my mum for her birthday in July!

Sockapalooza...

is underway! Whee! I got a lovely email yesterday from my spoiler (Hi secret pal!) and am very excited!

Unfortunately my spoilee didn't include any specs in her profile and hasn't answered my email to her yet. :( I'm a little frustrated about this; I was really hoping to dye her sock yarn this weekend but now it looks like I will just have to wait.

I am almost done with the first stripey-sock, which I have decided will be a mother's day gift for my mum. As always, I will post a pic once I've finished.

Stripey Goodness

It's almost like I knew what I was doing!

The color is still off on the computer, but you get the idea. I'm so happy with the results of this dye, even if the results aren't exactly what I was thinking. I wanted the 3 stripes to be more distinctive, but I'm liking the subtleness of this striping much better. It gives a soft transition between the 2 distinct colors! Yippie! I will definitely be doing more with this "colorway".

I'm going to order more of the bare yarn from Knitpicks this weekend and then play with mixing flavors! Who knew dyeing could be such fun! XD

Kool Aid Addiction

I was so happy with the results I got on Saturday, that I went dye crazy on Sunday!
I wound my remaining 3 skeins of dk weight yarn into 12 skein that were approx. 1oz each and then dyed them using 12 different flavors of Kool Aid in order to make a color card and possibly knit a sampler. I ended up with 6 different shades of red/pink! I will have to scour my local stores to see if I can find any flavors I missed!
I also wound the sock yarn I dyed into a 2yd hank. This was the best picture I could get and it is still very difficult to see the variation, so below is a picture of the hanks dyed with those flavors... it's a little easier to make out the colors.
Now I just have to see if the stripes knit up properly! If so, I see many more skeins like this in the future! :)

I have to say that I am loving this technique for dyeing. In the past I've always used commercial acid dyes, that require lots of ventilation, gloves, goggles & masks or have added vinegar to the Kool Aid (as I was taught) and been very unhappy with the results! You still want to be careful not to breathe in the Kool Aid powder, but it is not nearly as toxic! Hey Kool Aid!

Kool-Aid Dyeing

I dyed 2 skeins of the KnitPicks Bare yarn using Kool-Aid. One skein of the DK and one of the fingering weight. Here's the results...
Dark red=Tropical Punch; light red/pink=Watermelon Cherry; Purple= Grape

DK Weight Yarn right out of the pot

Light Blue=Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade; Blue=Berry Blue; Light (Celery) Green=Artic Green Apple

Fingering Weight right out of pot

Here they are drying in the sun.

It started raining about 20min after this picture was taken!

Unfortunately my camera is having problems picking out the difference between the light & darker blue. I think it's due to them being the same hue under bright light. In person there is a difference. You may notice that the fingering skein is longer, this is because I wound it into an 8yrd hank so that, in theory, the yarn will self-stripe when I knit it up. There is a good tutorial on this technique over at See Eunny Knit. Overall I'm very happy with the results. This is the first time I've dyed using Kool-Aid without adding vinegar. The yarn certainly absorbed it ok, we will just have to wait & see how color-fast it is.

BTW- The Spring Surprise is up at Knitty! Am I crazy for totally wanting to knit this?

Happy Day!

Kris came home yesterday after being away for a week due to work & Gandalf-related activities. Corrina was very happy about this...

Whilst he was away, I placed an order at KnitPicks. I needed to get a sweater stone and then I decided to try for the free shipping...

I got 6 skeins of fingering weight and 4 skeins of dk weight yarn in their Bare line, which is 100% merino yarn that has been washed & spun but not bleached. I got it for dyeing. I've had the urge lately and didn't want to muck about with spinning. Now I just need to find the time to dye it! Not sure what type of dye I'm going to use yet. I don't think I have any laying about.

Btw- I've already tried out the sweater stone, it works great! Although it does leave a bit of pumice dust laying about...