Mad Scientist
Y'all have to realize something about this dyeing thing. I'm totally winging this. Playing it by ear. Experimenting. Having fun. Figuring it out. I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, but I do have a general set of plans and dreams. I have some ideas for colorways that I want to create. Actually, I have a really fun theme for a set of colorways that I'd like to create. But it's a secret for now. For now, I'm just having fun playing mad scientist, and you're welcome to come along for the ride.
Hey, Diva - I don't know about selling my hand dyed yarn yet. I'll tell you what - if the results turn out to be good enough, I just might. A few extra bucks in the bank account would be nice. I'm still trying to figure out if I can even do this competently yet.
Stacy - I checked out about eight books from the library on dyeing, and most of them discuss only the professional dyes. I think there may have been one or two that briefly mentioned the possibility of using Kool-Aid, but none of them mentioned Wilton as far as I can recall. The two that I've enjoyed the most are Yarns to Dye For : Creating Self-Patterning Yarns for Knitting by Kathleen Taylor and Dyeing to Knit by Elaine Eskesen. Most of the others were pretty much over my head, or at least more technical than I was interested in at the moment. I picked up a few hints here and there that I think I can apply to the Wilton dye process, but nothing significant. Really, if you're interested in reading up on this, start by doing a google search on yarn Wilton dye or something like that. There are tons of items out there, and that's where I learned most of what I'm doing now.
Oh, and about the word verification thingie. I've had a couple of people tell me they've had trouble with it. I may try turning it off again, although I originally turned it on after I got a bit of spam showing up. If you want to post a comment and can't, feel free to just e-mail me at shellyk at shellykang dot com. Actually, if you've tried to post a comment but had trouble because of that gizmo, please to e-mail me and let me know. If it's a big issue, I'll get rid of it. Thanks!
Now, on to the fun!
I spent a few minutes last night lining up all my dyes in the order that I want them to stripe on this sampler skein I'm working up. I typed them all up in a nice little list so I wouldn't get confused, then put them back in the box. It's more or less going to be a rainbow spectrum. You'll see.
This afternoon it was warm and sunny, so we all went outside to play for a bit. Julie was drawing a "picnic" on the driveway and Sophie was - well, helping.
Here's what it looked like when they were done.
They also spent some time in the sand box. I was pleasantly surprised by how well they played together, and also with how well Sophie played without putting things in her mouth. Julie was such an oral kid, and for the most part Sophie isn't. She played in the sand box for about half an hour without tasting the sand once!
While they were busy playing, I was busy walking back and forth across the yard, stringing my yarn around a couple of lawn chairs. The whole time I was doing it, I was thinking "the neighbors must think I'm totally insane." That, and trying to convince Julie that she really better leave my yarn alone. Really. Get away from the yarn. Right. Now! No, you may not run back and forth touching my yarn. Well, whatever.
Then, the neighbors across the street stopped by on their way home from a bike ride and D (the guy) started to ask what I was doing, the L (the woman - hi L!) said "Oh, are you getting ready to dye some yarn?" Which was cool because she had read the blog and knew that there was a somewhat-sane reason for me to be stringing yarn all across the lawn. And we all had a nice little conversation about how it's going to work instead of them going in their house and peeking out at the crazy woman and her yarn. Ha!
The whole point was to make a long loop about 40 yards in circumference, then tie it off at one yard intervals ending up with a pile that looked like this:
I don't have the capacity to dye all almost-40 colors in one night, so I soaked only a portion of the wool while we cleaned up the kitchen after dinner, and stuck the rest of it in a ziploc bag to keep it dry and under control.
And I spent some time prepping the dye itself - I measured out .5 ml of each color and mixed it in jars with a quarter cup of vinegar. I know mixing metric (good) and imperial (bad) measurements is going to bite me in the hiney, but it was easy and I wasn't thinking when I reached for that quarter cup. Don't ask me why I used those specific amounts - they were what felt right after my initial experiment months ago and after all the various reading I've done on the subject.
Once the dyes were well-mixed I filled the jars with more warm water and arranged it all in my canning pot thus:
I heated it up till it was almost at a boil, then turned the heat off and walked away so the whole mess can cool down enough to handle. You'll have to wait at least till tomorrow to see the results, which are as far as I can tell so far pretty good.
As I was walking into my office, I witnessed this:
That's Joe, in his office, wearing his new purple sneakers and using his Swiffer. Reason 1,573 why I love my husband. He is just so cute.
I'm off to play with wet yarn then cuddle with the blankie.
Hey, Diva - I don't know about selling my hand dyed yarn yet. I'll tell you what - if the results turn out to be good enough, I just might. A few extra bucks in the bank account would be nice. I'm still trying to figure out if I can even do this competently yet.
Stacy - I checked out about eight books from the library on dyeing, and most of them discuss only the professional dyes. I think there may have been one or two that briefly mentioned the possibility of using Kool-Aid, but none of them mentioned Wilton as far as I can recall. The two that I've enjoyed the most are Yarns to Dye For : Creating Self-Patterning Yarns for Knitting by Kathleen Taylor and Dyeing to Knit by Elaine Eskesen. Most of the others were pretty much over my head, or at least more technical than I was interested in at the moment. I picked up a few hints here and there that I think I can apply to the Wilton dye process, but nothing significant. Really, if you're interested in reading up on this, start by doing a google search on yarn Wilton dye or something like that. There are tons of items out there, and that's where I learned most of what I'm doing now.
Oh, and about the word verification thingie. I've had a couple of people tell me they've had trouble with it. I may try turning it off again, although I originally turned it on after I got a bit of spam showing up. If you want to post a comment and can't, feel free to just e-mail me at shellyk at shellykang dot com. Actually, if you've tried to post a comment but had trouble because of that gizmo, please to e-mail me and let me know. If it's a big issue, I'll get rid of it. Thanks!
Now, on to the fun!
I spent a few minutes last night lining up all my dyes in the order that I want them to stripe on this sampler skein I'm working up. I typed them all up in a nice little list so I wouldn't get confused, then put them back in the box. It's more or less going to be a rainbow spectrum. You'll see.
This afternoon it was warm and sunny, so we all went outside to play for a bit. Julie was drawing a "picnic" on the driveway and Sophie was - well, helping.
Here's what it looked like when they were done.
They also spent some time in the sand box. I was pleasantly surprised by how well they played together, and also with how well Sophie played without putting things in her mouth. Julie was such an oral kid, and for the most part Sophie isn't. She played in the sand box for about half an hour without tasting the sand once!
While they were busy playing, I was busy walking back and forth across the yard, stringing my yarn around a couple of lawn chairs. The whole time I was doing it, I was thinking "the neighbors must think I'm totally insane." That, and trying to convince Julie that she really better leave my yarn alone. Really. Get away from the yarn. Right. Now! No, you may not run back and forth touching my yarn. Well, whatever.
Then, the neighbors across the street stopped by on their way home from a bike ride and D (the guy) started to ask what I was doing, the L (the woman - hi L!) said "Oh, are you getting ready to dye some yarn?" Which was cool because she had read the blog and knew that there was a somewhat-sane reason for me to be stringing yarn all across the lawn. And we all had a nice little conversation about how it's going to work instead of them going in their house and peeking out at the crazy woman and her yarn. Ha!
The whole point was to make a long loop about 40 yards in circumference, then tie it off at one yard intervals ending up with a pile that looked like this:
I don't have the capacity to dye all almost-40 colors in one night, so I soaked only a portion of the wool while we cleaned up the kitchen after dinner, and stuck the rest of it in a ziploc bag to keep it dry and under control.
And I spent some time prepping the dye itself - I measured out .5 ml of each color and mixed it in jars with a quarter cup of vinegar. I know mixing metric (good) and imperial (bad) measurements is going to bite me in the hiney, but it was easy and I wasn't thinking when I reached for that quarter cup. Don't ask me why I used those specific amounts - they were what felt right after my initial experiment months ago and after all the various reading I've done on the subject.
Once the dyes were well-mixed I filled the jars with more warm water and arranged it all in my canning pot thus:
I heated it up till it was almost at a boil, then turned the heat off and walked away so the whole mess can cool down enough to handle. You'll have to wait at least till tomorrow to see the results, which are as far as I can tell so far pretty good.
As I was walking into my office, I witnessed this:
That's Joe, in his office, wearing his new purple sneakers and using his Swiffer. Reason 1,573 why I love my husband. He is just so cute.
I'm off to play with wet yarn then cuddle with the blankie.
posted by Shelly Kang at 9:32 PM
9 Comments:
You're braver than I am. I haven't yet ventured into the world of dyeing or spinning, though I read up on them. I happened upon your site through the Yarn Harlot's and I'm glad I did! I also appreciate the food allergy recipes. You have a delightful site.
Thanks for the book titles!
I can't wait to see how your yarn turns out. Vicarious dyeing is fun, and much less messy than doing it in your own kitchen.
I had a problem with the visual verification not loading (even after multiple refreshes) a week or two ago, and then decided my comment wasn't that important. Mostly it works fine, though, and spam comments are annoying. :P
Oh... and I blogged about some gluten-free brownie recipes if you're interested: http://noricum.blogspot.com/2007/04/unusual-brownies.html
A quick note about the comment thing. Haloscan is an add-on to Blogger that does comments. For some reason, I don't think I have received any spam after I installed the thing. Although I installed it so that I would get my comments emailed to me. Just a thought...
You are going to use all those colors on one skein?!? You are BRAVE! I would surely run out of patience before I got to them all! And what is the color that seems to be running through your skein? It looks red. I resisted buying any dyes from Dharma trading company when my husband offered, as I am not sure how much I want to get into this! I think I have 4 undyed sock yarn skeins and 4 lace skeins, so I think I will try kool aid first.
That yarn is going to be coooooool! I can't wait to see the finished product.
SOmething that might save you a bit of time and a lot of steps: there is a DIY warping board tutorial here: http://www.scoutsswag.com/warpingboard.html
A warping board (originally used for weaving) can be used to get your yarn ready for dyeing stripes without walking around 2 chairs a zillion times. I have one and I love it, might be worth a look!
heather s
http://www.pieknits.com/blog/2006/02/dyeing_with_wiltons_icing_dye.html
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