Twists of Fate

OK, every time I think of yesterday in that context I giggle. Thanks to Embe for the phrasing.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited over to Embe’s house for a dyeing party! I gratefully accepted, because I think this group of ladies women (heh) are a wonderful bunch, and I really enjoy myself every time I’m around them. They’re all so smart and funny and fabulous, and very very generous. I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t contribute much this time around. I went looking for my box that has all my dyeing supplies in it, as well as my box o’ Cormo roving, but couldn’t find either. Thankfully, these wonderful women had everything necessary for successful dyeing, and then some.

Evanne had brought some indigo, which was amazing and really, watching the fiber come out of the yellow-green murk to magically turn that beautiful, vibrant blue? Probably will never, ever get old. I’m not sure who brought the amazing variety of Jacquard dyes, but boy howdy did I appreciate it! And LindaK walked me through creating a custom purple with Mother MacKenzie’s Miracle dyes. And she showed me how to do the “Sandy’s lasagne” method of dyeing, which was really cool to watch. I may have heckled a bit, because my middle name should probably be “smart ass”, but it was in good humor and really, her final product was incredible! And, well, watching Janine in action with her color creations is always groovy and, well, a bit intimidating. She’s all about color. Me? I’m trying to go beyond your basic black, grey, green and blue in my wardrobe. And you know what? The twins are just full of fabulous with a side of awesomesauce.

Plus, all these folks are great cooks. I had a very happy stomach after lunch.

I don’t have many pics of the day, because I suffer from chronic camnesia, but I did manage to snap this with the Crackberry. I finally remembered to take a picture of this but only because I was calling the yarn “Blackberry” and lo, I had a Blackberry with a camera in my purse.

There’s about 1000 yards of this, which should be enough to do something groovy.

All of the fiber I used yesterday was from Hanna a Romney ewe from Skylines Farm, my favorite fiber producer ever. Hanna is, in fact, a full blood Romney ewe, and the fiber I used yesterday was from the ‘07 fleece linked above. I sent it to Spinderella’s in Salt Lake for processing. Half the fleece was made into pin-drafted roving, and the other half spun to a yarn that’s solidly in the middle of their “sport weight” classification. I was thrilled at how many of my new dyeing friends asked if there was silk in the mix, and they were pretty surprised at how soft a Romney this was. It just goes to show that Melissa produces a truly amazing Romney fleece y’all.

Anyway, 1000yds of Hanna is done in Blackberry. 1800 or so was done up as “Tree Frog” (thanks to Embe’s wonderful man for the name!), and an undetermined amount of roving was dyed with the indigo. More pics when I can dig out the camera and when the sun returns.

Thank you everyone for the good times yesterday! I truly enjoyed spending time with everyone, and learned quite a lot. ::happydances!::

OK, so I am impatient and couldn’t wait for the skeins to dry before taking a picture.

Before:

After:

The after is still a bit damp, so it may lighten a bit at the end. Pretty much what I was looking for, so I guess I’ll just bend on over and change my name? :D

I did my first experiment in dyeing today! I used some Gaywool dyes that I got from Juniper Designs earlier this summer, but hadn’t had the guts to use yet. BTW, that vendor is marvelous. I got the dyes super fast in the mail, and she threw in a free sample of a lovely brown shade that I ended up using today, and which may have made the difference.

I’ll post before and after shots once the skeins are dry, but here’s the gist: I had some really lovely 50/50 alpaca/tencel blend yarn that wasn’t quite the shade I need for a project. I need a red/brick red or maroon/black set for the tri-colored Icelandic Triangle shawl from Folk Shawls, and the closest the loverly Cultured Purls had to maroon was a lovely, soft, beautiful berry color. I could’ve gotten the white, but I figured overdying the berry might work out a little better for me.

I’m done with my first skein of the really bright red yarn, and I (rightly, I think) figure that it’ll take a couple of days for the dyed skeins to dry. So I took a before shot of the skeins, and girded my loins for battle.

Now, Gaywool dyes are, as far as I can tell, the idiot proof dyes of the wool coloring world. They have all the mordants and, uh, crap in them to make the dye strike well. You just toss in a capful of the color to every 4oz of yarn into hot water, mix it up, and add the mix to a pot of boiling water. Enough to cover the yarn. And away you go!

And you know what? It really was just that simple. Since I’m aiming for a dark shade, and the lighting in the kitchen sucks, I didn’t take pics of the dyeing process. I actually read the directions first too, which was a big plus. I did remember that the skeins should probably be wet before dyeing, and since I can’t find the bottle of synthrapol I bought a while back, I just added a bit of dish detergent to the water I soaked the yarn in to get it nice and wet and ready. Which sounds kinda filthy, now that I re-read that, but we’ll let it go.

ANYWAY, I dutifully donned my mask and gloves, used some disposable things to mix the dye up, and? OK, here I have to admit that I just winged it. I had four 50g skeins, so I mixed a full cap of Tomato with a little over half a cap of Indigo, with a glomp or so of the brown. Tossed it in a clean, used Fage Greek Yogurt tub (btw, if you haven’t had that? DIVINE! Especially with honey!), which was 2/3 full of the hottest water from the tap (very hot, btw, and it’s scalded me on more than one occasion), and stirred with a plastic knife. Voila! A scary looking mix of…something.

Once the pot on the stove was boiling, I added the dyestuff, stirred it up and then gingerly lowered the sacrifical yarn in. According to the directions, 80% of the dye will strike in the first four minutes. D’oh! This is where some random kitchen implement came in handy. It’s a big…fork. A meat fork, or something, that the previous occupant left behind. It’s now dedicated to turning over limp, heavy, uncooperative skeins of yarn that are swishing around in boiling, stinky (from the yarn, not the dye), scary looking vats of dye.

I flipped, I turned, I lifted and let drain, and generally poked and prodded it for the first four minutes as directed. I do wonder if I felted the damn skeins, but since they always look completely pathetic and bedraggled when they’re wet, I can’t really tell here at the end. Anyway, I very gently swished them around every few minutes for 30 mintues total, then turned off the heat and wandered away to do some reading.

Something like three hours later, I remembered that I had been in the middle of a project, and went to check on everything. I’m fairly surprised, but pleased to say that the bath almost completely exhausted. I think I used a bit more dye than necessary (I was thinking 50g was more like 2.2oz, instead of the 1.7636981 ounces the google calculator tells me it is), so I’m not surprised the water had a faint rusty brown tinge to after removing the yarn.

The yarn itself? Holy cow if it dries to what I think it’ll be, I managed to get nearly the exact shade I was looking for. How ’bout that?! Spank my ass and call me Charlene if I really did get it right the first time.

Anyway, I’ll post in a couple of days once the skeins are dry with before and after pictures. I’m doing a bit of a Harlot and am attemping to resist the urge to turn the heat on until it’s absolutely necessary. Of course, she lives in Canada, and I’m in the fairly temperate, if soggy, Seattle, so my determination to make it until November seems pretty wussy in comparison.

So, it’ll be a couple of days until the skeins are ready for a photo shoot. I hope to have knit the shawl to the point where I *need* the skeins by then, but with the New Job (bwee!) starting on Tuesday, who the hell knows what’ll happen.

Stay tuned!

I’m a little cranky right now, because though the yarn I ordered specifically for this project came in, well. The pricing I was quoted and the price it ended up to be differed quite a bit. By $1.75/oz actually. Per *ounce*. I ordered 32 ounces. You can see why I might be a wee bit miffed.

However, I sucked it up and paid (I’ve been waiting three weeks! Like I’m going to leave it there!), and have been staring at the skein in front of me for a bit. I’m not quite sure where to start with it.

Here’s what I have:
- nearly 2lbs of unscoured Henry’s Attic Silk & Wool
- Country Classics dyes
- some dyeing supplies, including masks, bottles, and if I can find it, I may have a pot to dye in

So here are my questions. There are many.
- Do I wash a skein of this before I even begin swatching? I do realize in order to get the best dye takeup, I need to scour it all before dyeing.
- But what is the best way to wash it?
- Does the dyepot absolutely need to be stainless steel?
- Will dyeing the yarn change the gauge at all in the finished swatch?
- Should I swatch first, then dye?
- Can I use the swatches to test various dye bath strengths with any accuracy?
- Where’s the best/cheapest place to get a digital scale?
- What needles are best to start with to swatch a yarn that’s 2000ypp for a snugly knit, but still flowing fabric? The project is likely to be stockinette, though if I have enough yarn left over, I’d love to also do a similar project in lace.

I want to be a little conservative on the swatching, because w/out a swatch for gauge, I’m not really sure how much yarn I’m going to need.

Basically, I’m not really sure where to start. It’s all overwhelming! I do know I need to start with a swatch, if only to get the stitches per inch/row so I can start graphing the designs. But do I wash all the hanks (there are six, I think) in the same sort of soap in order to maintain consistency with the dyebaths?

Gah! So many questions. If you have any advice, I’d love to hear it! :D