Those of you that think I have a typo in my title get back on the short bus and ride away singing "One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall." Now isn't that special???
I did some dyeing this weekend, and no, not my hair. To push a KnitPicks order into the free shipping total (yeah, I'm a sucker for that too), I got three skeins of "Bare" which is a fingering weight merino wool/silk blend. I had read about dyeing yarn with Easter egg dye and thought it sounded intriguing. So last Easter I bought several boxes of egg dye when it went on sale after the holiday, and squirreled it away, something for which I have a great talent. One does believe in nourishing one's talents, after all.
So Sunday I had free time, cheap yarn, and an urge to get under the DH's feet in an annoying manner whilst he was trying to have fun brewing his latest batch of beer. Yay! I hit the trifecta! Of course, trying to guess what color each tablet is can be amusing, but I have years of experience dippin' eggs, so away I went. I knew I wanted to do gradients of color, and started with the purple. I kept dipping in more yarn and raising the fluid level, and got a result with which I was really pleased.
I grabbed skein #2. This one gets a green treatment, but I got adventurous. I dipped the second end in yellow, leaving about a quarter of the yarn toward that end undyed for a couple minutes, then I dumped all the yarn in the green dye, and put the yellow in with it. Whoo-hoo, this looked really cool! Skein #3 gets two colors in equal parts...simultaneously dipping in blue on one half, turquoise on the other. I kept raising the fluid level in increments, and then let color wick over the bit of yarn bridging between the two containers.
See what you think! And if you don't like it, keep it to yourself. My psyche bruises easily. You don't want me to call the psyche abuse hotline, do you?My friend Barbara of Furryarns (check enabling list) welcomed me to a new obsession. I refuse to become obsessed. I had fun, but heaven knows when I'll even have a chance to knit with this stuff.
I have enough projects for eight years past my life expectancy. Ain't life grand?
5 comments:
I especially love the purples and greens! To bad my hands won't co-operate to do any crocheting anymore.
I used egg dye for my first yarn-dying experiment, as well. 'Cept I made the colors really strong--about 3/4 cup of liquid apiece, with 5 or 6 colors of egg dye. I handpainted it (yay, microwave....) and have an interesting variegated yarn. I haven't used it, though--I'm scared of the possibility of the 'clown puke' thing. However, I might work it in a fair isle type pattern with black to mitigate. :) Maybe a hat or something? It was a single skein of Moda Dea superwash worsted.
Great Dye job!
purty, purty! You DID know that EASTER is my favorite holiday, and Easter colors are my favorite colors. That turq/blue looks mighty fine...could make for a fine shawlette or very cool socks or, or...well I know I'll think of *something* wink, wink
Tell you what...I'll send you the blue/turq. yarn as soon as the Mystic Waters shawl in MY favorite color gets here!
Post a Comment