Why does she have it an avocado green crockpot, circa mid 1970’s? (I know! It is just like the one the X and I received for a wedding gift lo, those many years ago). I searched 5 thrift stores before I found it. I bought it for $2.50 without a lid. I found the lid for 99 cents over at the pots-and-pans-loose-lid bin!
Oh. I love me my bargains.
Remember the garage yarn sale haul? Where I found the natural dyes? Well, when I went back, I got some acid dyes, too. (among other things….) I swear, they might as well have been free!
So…
White wool top seconds? Check
Thrift store crockpot, otherwise known as a dedicated apparatus? Check
Dyes of all sorts? Check
How-to books? Check
I was all set and ready to go.
Now. For some free time…
Well, that happened last week when The Guy was down in Denver and I was, oh, just scouring fleece and otherwise twiddling my thumbs. I eyed that there crockpottedness, and pondered my past abilities of multi-tasking.
Just having set the twist in the fawn suri alpaca, and not being 100% sold on the result, I knew a test article in the waiting. ‘Checking my resources’, and by that, I mean reading one of many dyer’s discussion groups on Ravelry, and checking my books, and printing off four, count ‘em, four different sets of instructions from the dye manufacturers websites, Knitty.com, and Knitpicks, I embarked on the task, thusly armed with knowledge.
Not one of those founts of knowledge warned me against tying my yarn too tightly.
Yep. I tie-dyed my suri.
But. My dye mixed up well, and my proportions were spot on, and my dye bath exhausted beautifully. Where exhausted is one of the technical terms.
I love me my technical terms!
And overall….mostly…I ended up with blue yarn.
I dyed each skein twice in an attempt to cover up the blank spots, but…eh…not so much with the working excellently. And not so much with both skeins being the same blue. But...
(even with the spinning and setting the twist, and dyed twice? Still with the bits of veggie matter!)
(clicky to see rilly up close and big-like)
(clicky to see rilly up close and big-like)
I would say I learned much, however, and am thinking already about the next test article.
9 comments:
Crafting is such a slippery slope with one aspect leading right into another..... Haven't gone the dying route yet, but I do have a rainbow of Kool-Aid lined up and a harvest gold crockpot, from the same era- yes, a wedding present! I bet the yarn will knit up beautifully, with the light portions giving some depth to the color! Nice job for a noobie.
If you hadn't told the whole story, I would have assumed that this was the planned outcome -- like a subtle variegated floss, only yarn. I think it's pretty, and I think it's great the way you're always trying new things.
I absolutely adore the color and would pay top dollar for it!!! I think it will work up nicely into whatever you make. Beautiful! And it does keep the imagination flowing for the next attempt...
I could not figure out for the life of me WHY anyone would go in search of an avocado green crockpot.
Now I get it!
I kind of like a little varieagation (is that a word) in the yarn. Some of my favorite socks are like that. So I think you did a great job but the crock pot cracks me up.
For some reason, when I think 'dedicated apparatus', it reminds me of grandpa's truss...
Love the blue!
The yarn is lovely! You did a great job.
The color is marvelous...and of course, tie dye is certainly 1970..I imagine it was your subconcious mind that tied those skeins so tight!! And the crock pot probably exerted its influence as well.
SHUT UP.
That is the exact crock pot that my brother and I are fighting over. In the event of our mother's unfortunate demise, we both want her crock pot. In an effort to put an end to this fight, she has vowed to be cremated so that her remains will be placed inside the crock pot.
Yeah, we need to get out more. But I *heart* your crock pot.
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