Christina's Creations: My Dyeing and Wool(fest)!

Okay, if all you want to see is the pretty yarn, scroll down to the end of this post.

If, on the other hand, you want to see my first dabblings into the world of long skein dyeing then read on!

So, first, find a hall, kitchen or other long stretch with doors at either end. With handles. It also helps if one door opens into the aforementioned space (so you can get your skein off at the end) ; a lock on that door is good too (to stop it swinging open prematurely!)

So, after running frantically up and down the hallway many times with my yarn bobbin rotating on a DPN (and dropping it at regular intervals), it looks something like this...

Thankfully the photo has mostly missed me out so you can't see how red faced I am! It's amazing how many ways you can sneak excercise into spinning and Dyeing!

Next, the skein gets ( for the first time in my life) an overnight soak in cold water with vinegar added, it really makes a difference to the finished colourfastness. (You don't really want to watch a skein in water do you?)

Next pretty photo is the beginning of my dyeing enterprise. As the skein was skinny, I could lay it on either sides of the cling film then roll them both up to the centre. You can just about see where I've done dotty and dashy effects - this took time and effort- not really worth it! You'll see in the eventual skein that it's done a pretty good job of covering everything!

I used between 2ml and 8ml dye stock which I diluted mostly 5X except yellow which I diluted 1:1 to save it from disappearing. (This mostly for myself as a future aide memoire!)

Anyway, squirt it, roll it over, squish it about a bit to cover the white bits and then roll it up and start all over again until you have this..... ( roughly an hour later)

My big, rainbow doughnut! I had a decision to make as to how to fix the dye- I've always used the Microwave in the past but it is a bit brutal (and the yarn was handspun laceweight Bluefaced Leicester) so I turfed out my little-used electric Steamer, set the timer for 35 mins and waited for the ping.

Being super cautious, I left it in the steamer for an hour before curiosity overtook me and I had to have a peek. Amazingly, it had taken almost every drop of the dye solution and the colours were bright and gorgeous ( if perhaps not quite the effects I was looking for!)

Don't forget the skein was at least 20 foot long? so I couldn't fit it all in view! But this gives you and idea of how well it dyed. Again , being skinny skeins, it's almost dry by now and I'll probably ball then skein it over the weekend. As it started to dry, you could see slight variations where I'd tried to do dotty things so they'll probably show as variations in the knitted fabric.

I'll have to decide whether I do make socks with it- there's 85 grams and acres of yardage ( but i can never be bothered to count!) or do something lacey, but is it too bright?

The main thing is, it survived unscathed! I was careful washing it in not too hot or cold water, not rubbing or squeezing too much and it's really turned out well!

Changing subject, here's one I prepared earlier! Not really, I finally got my February sock yarn from Fyberspates. It's sooo thick compared to the socks of doom which you'll remember have only just come off the needles and as usual, swatching the pattern came out miles too wide! After hours playing with needles and swatching, when I finally knitted up the pattern, I decided the hearts were the wrong shape anyway so I changed the 16 stitch repaet to a 14 stitch and lo and behold, it now fits me!

There are still a few teething troubles to iron out (like when I get to a certain point in the pattern adn all hell breaks loose!), but I've knitted the flap, the rib underneath the flap and I'm gallantly knitting down the leg but I'll post a pic when there's more to see.

My other little indulgence of the weekend was this gorge skein of cashmere from the Yarn Goddess on Ebay. Plenty for a pair of socks and half the usual buy-it now price so I'm a happy bunny.