Convoluted Success

I spent a good part of a past Sunday working with the alpaca and Jacob handspun that I thought I would dye. I had mumbled and muttered through what colors I was going to try (dark orange for the Jacob, and orchid for the alpaca, and finally got off dead center.

At the end of the day, I had dyed the alpaca dark orange. Being more brownish, I felt it would do better, and the Jacob which was intending to be orchid (one part fuchsia, one part turquoise) turned out blue.

Not really a problem.  Orchid was a nice thought, but orchid schmorchid....I love blue.

What was a problem was that I dyed the six skeins of each fiber in 2 skein batches in the dedicated apparatus (otherwise known as the avocado green crockpot) and the batches? Well, I tried to do it precisely and scientifically and all, but…well, separate dye lots are not equal dye lots….as it were.

The next evening, thinking what I needed to do was overdye each fiber as a whole batch, I hauled my blue enamel canning pot up from the basement. And dusted it off.  The dye bath was prepared using the same colors as before, and this time the process resulted in a consistent color. The only variation is due to the original shading of the fiber.

The dark orange dye exhausted almost completely which means the dyed yarn was left setting in almost clear water. The blue did not. My research leads me to think this is typical of the fuchsia and turquoise dyes. They are powerful dyes! The rinsing after dyeing resulted in almost completely clear water, so I feel the dye is set in the yarn, and that I used too much dye.

Still learning. About this and so many other things...

Interestingly, my laundry room, where I had 12 skeins of dark orange and blue (not orchid) yarn hanging? Sort of looked like there was Denver Broncos fan club thingie going one. Which is a little weird, because I am not so much one. Just sort of turned out that way….

Results? I am very pleased, and excited to pick something out of my queue to knit this stuff into.

Knitting My Own

During the spinning workshop at the Estes Park Wool Market, it was said the way to spin better yarn was to knit with the yarn we spin.

Huh. Go figure.

Well, I have knitted some socks from the baby alpaca I processed, to some more or less success. They were wonderful to wear, and wear them I did. They did not prove to be very durable.

Life is all about lessons, don’t you know.

I have given my handspun away, asking others to let me know how it knitted up. Nothing like shifting the burden! And getting a useful opinion on which to base further judgment. Or maybe not so much.

I trust Ms. Casey’s wisdom. It has proven out in the past.

And Youngest mentioned (perhaps in passing, but perhaps not!) that she should like something made from the Shades of Crimson yarn I handspun/painted. So, after some diligent searching for some pattern of some thing I felt appropriate for the yarn, and the daughter, and the yardage, and my mood…

I found this Sunkist Cardi (by Kirstin Kapur, rav linky).

I am knitting it from this. I spun 12 oz of white BFL (blue faced Leicester wool) into about 540 yards of 2-ply, which I handpainted with 3 shades of Crimson Red, by sub-diluting the first and most concentrated solution.

A bit of the way in so far, and this much is known. The knitting with this yarn is good. Quite good, actually.

Good enough that:

#1, I might not give anymore of it away!
#2, I might relist some in our Etsy store, Atomic Sisters, because folks, this stuff is seriously nice to knit with.
#3, I am queueing up what is going to be my next handspun project to knit, and to spin.

Very motivating this has all been.
Very, indeed!

Not Yet

I don’t have the hang of it just. quite. yet.

I was all stoked by my second attempt at handpainting.

I had 12 oz of blue faced Leicester that I finished as 2-ply. While updating my stash, I was clued in to ‘shades of the same color’, and I thought..why, I can ‘paint’ with different dilutions of the same color!

So I did. Of Crimson. And it turned very spiffy indeed. I have weighed the two skeins (about 5 1/2 oz ea), and figured the wpi (about 14-ish), and stored it properly.

Then got it back out so I could look at it some more.

Because it’s so pretty!

The six ounces of Corriedale was next in line, and I thought, ooh Spring! Daffodils! Finches! Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy…

So shades of yellow I set about diluting.

Well. Yellow is different than crimson, methinks. I will use less…much less…. next time in my solutions, and I do believe I will have to overdye the retina-burning-brilliant solar-pineapple-yellow-mostly-of-one-color that was the result!

Yeah…not so much with the shades of pretty soft yellow thing going on with it.

So then, I got to learn about color mixing. Checking my resources, I found that it was down pretty much to my best guess.

So...some immersion dyeing with a bit of....teal.

Interesting that the 'shades' seemed to show up in the overdyeing.

Still learning. Don’t know it all just yet.

Except about the lessons of humility...and not getting too darned cocky too quickly.

Too Much Fun

Friday, I stopped by the thrift store on my way. You know, just to see if there was a steamer. I’ve been reading again, you see.  This time about the handpaint dyeing technique. Steaming is required, and to me (again with the dedicated apparatus) to save my microwave and brand new stove, I opted to chance a thrift store find.

Which I did. Doesn’t have a lid, but some aluminum foil works dandy. For the price!

I got out my white wool top seconds and weighed a known quantity, tied it (with the suggested figure-8 technique to prevent tie-dye effects) (see how she learns!) and set it to soak. In gathering up the rest of the paraphanelia, I realized I didn’t have the foam brushes I thought I did. So off I tripped to the beauty supply place.

Again. I have been there now for a wig head (for blocking hats), hair picks ( for the DIY hackle), and now, applicator bottles. This time she asked if I wanted a frequent purchaser card.  I declined.  For now....

I mixed three colors of dye, and organized 'a protected area' (technical term) using an old shower curtain, laid out my saran wrap, the soaked roving on top of the wrap, and started squirting the dye. Wearing gloves, I pressed the dyes through the roving to make sure it got through the whole thickness.

When I was convinced the wool top was colorful enough, I wrapped it up in the saran wrap, making a big jelly roll, and placed it in the steamer for 35 minutes. After cooling, I removed the roll to the sink, unwrapped it, and rinsed in soapy water, followed by clear.  The colorful roving was allowed to dry.

The process didn’t go perfectly, but I learned some things. So...on the whole, a successful exercise.

• I will use a smaller amount of roving for the width of wrap I used.
• I know now to blot up the excess dye after ‘painting’.
• I understand what the soaking bath needs to be.

However, it turned out sort of pretty. The steamer worked. The kitchen didn’t end up dyed. So Wonderful Guy was amused by it all.

 

And. And! Not wanting to waste anything…

 

After a quick and dirty spin job, I had a bobbin of single ply ready to try my hand at Navajo plying. A quick check of my resources, and by that I mean I watched this again.

I had some leftover BFL single ply that I took off the bobbin trying to follow Miss Sara. She makes it looks so easy…

 

The resulting effort.  It's...not...immediately easy...

Then I watched it again.

And again. And again.

I loaded up the handpainted on Molly and went to it, and just kept at it. After some spits and starts, I filled a bobbin more or less. Then walked away and left it for a bit.

 

1st effort

The next day I wrapped that off, and looked at it. It was a practice exercise, certainly, and I was ready for my second attempt. I am getting much closer. Part of it will be getting the wheel tension dialed in, but of course, most of it is getting me dialed in! (Who am I kidding!)

 

2nd effort

But. But! I am loaded with ideas to try the handpainting again…

So there will be more with which to practice the Navajo plying.

See. It’s all good.

An Avocado Green Crockpot?

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)

I would say I learned much, however, and am thinking already about the next test article.

Dyeing

So I found this on vacation. Looks like very much fun. Very down to earth. Very basic how-tos. I thought it looked like a practical resource that I could use. A very useful souvenir.

And I have all this, which is wool top (seconds) picked up from Brown Sheep…oh…a while back. Nothing fancy. Nothing to worry about ‘messing’ up, in other words.

Then I found this undiscovered tidbit in my now famous ‘way and means’ to harvest and dry herbs book.

Loooooky there, fabric...yarn...and tuffs of roving! I never noticed...

Now I have had this book for nigh on 15 years, I am thinking. I do believe I bought in when we lived in Missouri. But see. It just never occurred to me before now that these pages had anything to say to me. While checking my resources to make sure my catnip was going to be done up right, and my lavender taken care of properly…well, there it was all along. The ways and means of dyeing right along with the harvest and drying, all overlooked.

So anyway. The stars are lining up. I am downright fearful to read much about what I might have growing in my yard that I could use.

Seriously. Those grandbebe girls are on their way, and they wants their quilts.