A Good Day to Dye

On Saturday the Kool-aid fountain at my house was flowing and the fiber was flying. Me and 8 of my knitting friends all took turns dyeing our yarn, eating really yummy food, and causing general color mayhem. I think I'll just comment on the pictures because as they say, they're worth 1,000 words and I can't top that.

First off, this is the very cute puff pastry that Wendy brought for us. It was almost too cute to eat. But we did.

First we lined up our inventory and took stock of what we had. Chris, very generously, drank all of the water out of all the water bottles in her house so she could put together this for us to use to mix. Every flavor of Kool-aid we could get our hands on in the San Diego area.


Anna went first. She had searched far and wide for the elusive Tamarindo Kool-aid and was determined to get the color she was after.


We had a lot of trouble getting the Tamarindo to mix correctly. It was very gloppy and goopy and the result below was after three different dye sets. I think it turned out great and was totally worth it.

Chris had used the warping board to set up her yarn for self-striping. Then after much mixing and decision-making Chris went with Green, Blue and Red stripes. She was definitely the mix master of the day.


Suzanne had a definite blue theme to her dying. She left my house with two blue hanks of yarn, and one blue finger. The one on the left was done with a little more purple in it and the one on the right was done with different shades of blue and had a lot of depth to it.

Wendy just went for it with a few colors she mixed and ended up with some absolutely beautiful results. One hank looked like a tie-dye throwback from the 60s. The other she just sprinkled with dry Kool-aid and got a wonderful flecked look.

Here's the proud mama displaying her creations.

Robin did a bulky weight yarn with some blue, purple and green in it. It reacted completely different to the Kool-aid then the fingering weight yarn and she ended up with a very cool watercolor effect. The one on the left is the hot tamale with yellow, orange and red.

It was so much fun sharing this experience with some really fun friends. Here are a few of the hanks trying to dry in the not so hot November sun.

My best B spent the night and the next morning we got up to do just one more thing. This past year we went to see Wicked at the San Diego Civic Theater. We went out to dinner, went to the play and it was a wonderful evening. So we decided we needed some Wicked self-striping sock yarn to commemorate the occasion.

We mixed some Chartreuse, Lilac, and Black and cooked it up. It came out so cool, that I might just have to drop every other project I have on the needles and knit this up as soon as it is dry. I just don't know if I could hold out.

The other yarn I made is more for my husband because he is a Kansas City Chiefs Fan. These are their colors and I think they turned out really nice.

The finished results. I'm totally addicted to this stuff.

Project Wool - The best weekend ever!

This weekend when my Best B came over to celebrate my birthday, she brought me a dream come true. For awhile I've been thinking about what it would be like to process my own fleece, dye it, spin it and use it. I read about it, dreamt about it and waited for my chance to try it. For my birthday, she brought the opportunity to my door. When she first arrived, we sat down to have a late lunch and she let me open my present. It was a set of Ashford hand carders and 3 bags of wool she had cleaned and dyed. There was also three jars of Jacquard dyes in Red, Blue and Yellow. I was so excited I could barely contain myself! I was immediately taught how to hold the carders and pull the wool through and comb it. Then she showed me how to roll the wool off into a rolag so I could spin it.


We had been planning to dye yarn for awhile and so after lunch we started our dyeing experiments. We started with 4 hanks of Knitpicks Bare fingering weight yarn, that had been soaking for about 8 hours. We mixed some bottles of Kool-aid in the kitchen and went to work in the front yard.

This is me and Son #1 painting stripes on our yarn with a bottle mixed with 4 packets of Grape Kool-Aid.

This is what we steamed the yarn in.

Here's B and Son #1 painting the yarn half with 1 bottle mixed with 6 packets of Lemonade and 4 packets of Strawberry and half with 1 bottle mixed with 4 packets of pink Lemonade, 1 Black Cherry Kool-Aid and 1/8 tsp Blue Jacquard Acid Dye.

Here we are folding it up for the steamer.

This yarn was done with 1 bottle mixed with 6 packets of Lemonade and 4 packets of Strawberry Kool-Aid, 1 bottle mixed with 2 packets of Lemonade Kool-Aid, and 1 bottle mixed with 4 packets of Strawberry.

This is me and Son #2 squirting yarn with 1 bottle mixed with 4 packets of Tropical Punch Kool-Aid.

Here they are in all their glory, hanging out to dry.

My patio smelled so good from all of the Kool-Aid.

Then we decided to go in and rest for a little bit, all of that excitement takes a lot out of you. So I carded and spun some of the wool she brought me in my present. I wanted to see what it looked like so I knitted this. I was just playing with a few twists and did a little stockinette and a little garter. I think I'm just going to spin up the rest of the fiber to finish this up, then after blocking, hang it on my wall as a happy memory.


The next day we got up and went kayaking around Carlsbad Lagoon. This was not my idea, it turns out my Best B is ambitious in more than just her knitting. I was a little hesitant at first, but had a really good time and it wasn't really that difficult. We didn't tip over or get stuck and I would definitely do it again. Afterwards we stopped at one of my favorite places for brunch and came home to continue the fiber madness. All my boys were out for the day so it was just the two of us and we decided to do the dirty work of sifting through the mega box of fleece her brother had sent her. We knew it was going to take a lot of time as the person who had done the shearing had never done it before and was basically doing it to give the fiber. The sheep that the wool had come from were not kept well and we knew that our work was cut out for us.

Yes, that is poo. And hay and other things. We figured that it was about as bad as it can get, and if we could pull this off we could do anything.

This is what the wool looked like as we pulled it apart and examined it. This was the good stuff.


As of right now, it's in the garage in a bucket soaking. Tonight I will change the water out and soak it again for another day and see what it looks like tomorrow night.

After sifting through the fleece and getting enough to soak, we decided to try the Acid dyes while the kids were out of the house. So we dyed two more skeins of yarn . One was Chocolate Brown and Pink and I'm going to call that one Neopolitan, and the other was Blue and Yellow which I think looks like a Canary. This is the money shot with our weekend of dyeing in one spot.

Yup, a girl couldn't have asked for more. I am so grateful to have a best friend like my Best B at my side for all of this stuff. She has been a wonderful teacher and inspiration.

Experimentation

Dyeing Experiment #1 - Black Cherry
Supplies: 1 Hank of Knit Picks Bare (100 grams, 75% superwash, 25% Nylon), 4 packets of Black Cherry Kool-Aid, Distilled White Vinegar, Slow Cooker
For this method I loosely followed the directions for a hot pour dye. This is where you pour the dye directly over the yarn in the spots that you want.

1. I put the yarn in a bowl filled with hot water and 1 cup of white vinegar.
2. While the yarn was soaking, I filled my 6 qt slow cooker half full with water and 1 Tablespoon of vinegar and started heating it up.
3. Mixed 1 cup of hot water with 1 packet of Black Cherry Kool-aid - for a total of 4 packets
4. Took the yarn out of the bowl, squeezed out excess water, and put in the slow cooker.
5. Then I poured the Kool-aid mixture over 4 different spots in the slow cooker.
6. Waited until the slow cooker heated up to 150 degrees then checked the water. It was clear, so I think all of the dye had been soaked up by the yarn.
7. Took the yarn out of the slow cooker and rinsed under hot water until it seemed to be rinsed.
8. Let the yarn dry overnight.
9. The next day, washed in a sinkful of cool water with a capful of SOAK.

I really like how the yarn came out, with the spots of white. I definitely liked the smell of it after I washed it the next day. Kool-aid and vinegar just smell funky together. I can't wait to swatch it up and see what it looks like knitted. My son was watching me during this process and decided he wanted to help me color some yarn too. So I decided to try the next technique I had read about.
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Dyeing Experiment #2 - Cherry
Supplies: 1 Hank of Knit Picks Bare (100 grams, 75% superwash, 25% Nylon), 8 packets of Cherry Kool-Aid, Slow Cooker
For this yarn I followed a generic dyeing method of just placing the yarn in a pot filled with dye and heating to set.

1. I put the yarn in a bowl filled with hot water.
2. While the yarn was soaking, I filled my 6 qt slow cooker half full with water and started heating it up.
3. Mixed 1 cup of hot water with 1 packet of Cherry Kool-aid - for a total of 4 packets and poured into the slow cooker and mixed thoroughly.
4. Took the yarn out of the bowl, squeezed out excess water, and put in the slow cooker.
5. Waited until the slow cooker heated up to 170 degrees then checked the water. It was clear, so I think all of the dye had been soaked up by the yarn. (This one got a little more cooking time, as I was doing the bedtime routine for the boys.)
6. Took the yarn out of the slow cooker and rinsed under hot water until it seemed to be rinsed.
7. Let the yarn dry overnight.
8. The next day, washed in a sink-ful of cool water with a cap-ful of SOAK.

I repeated this procedure twice, each with 4 packets of Kool-Aid. I think next time I'll just put all 8 in at once. The first time it came out it still had a few pale spots and wasn't very solid. Now, this is a very, very bright cherry yarn. I always like a little *bling* so I'm hoping that I'll find a suitable sock pattern for this.

This is what they look like side-by-side. Black Cherry and Cherry. It was really fun trying this with my son and I would love to be able to get some great color combinations going. I'm not to sure about using the acid dyes with the young-uns around. So I'll have to stick with Kool-Aid for now.

Mini Sweater

Today I was able to attend a class at my LYS on how to make Mini Christmas Sweaters. I've already made mini sweaters before, but the ones that I saw at the store were just so cute that I wanted to learn how they were done. I'm going to make a few more and have a cute little string of sweaters for Christmas ornaments.

Pattern: Mini Sweater
Yarn: elsebeth lavold Silky Wool
Yardage: a tiny bit for one sweater
Yarn Source: Local Yarn Store
Needles: Size US 0 (2.0 mm) Knit Picks dpns
Estimated Time to Complete Project: 2.5 hours

I also tried to dye a skein of KnitPicks Bare superwash wool in my slow cooker. It's drying right now. First, I soaked it warm water with a cup of vinegar. Then I put hot water and a tablespoon of vinegar in the slow cooker. After the yarn had a good soak I placed it in the pot. Then I mixed 1 cup of water for each packet of Black Cherry Kool-aid for a total of 4 packets. I didn't really mix it around because I kind of wanted a light and dark variegation. After it reached 150 degrees I checked the water and it was clear so I pulled the yarn out and rinsed it. It looks okay to me but I'll check it after it's dried tomorrow. I hope the cats don't think it's a kitty treat and try to eat it. My younger cat eats plastic bags so I never know what he'll try.