Dyeing to Start Knitting

I've had this yarn in my stash for quite a while. I like the base a lot, but this colorway has always presented a problem. With socks, Memories tends to pool in stripes, with two of the colors alternating and the other two alternating. With the S'mores colorway however, the colors that end up alternating are too high contrast to look very good.

I've tried embracing the pooling, tried to make a cowl with all the colors matched up, but it turned out way too big. If you check out projects on Ravelry, you can see some of the ugly pooling. After knitting quite a few pairs of socks in a row, I wanted to change things up a bit. I thought the browns might play well with the Liesel dropping leaves pattern. I swatched the first few rows and the pooling was not going to work out, it was too high contrast to allow the lace pattern to shine. So, I turned to the dye pot.

Before:

After:

As you can see in the after picture, I've closed the gap between the colors in the yarn, everything is all shades of brown now. I used Wilton's icing dye and I think the pattern will turn out quite nice. I really enjoying knitting this pattern last time; I can't wait to get going on it again.

Dye Day Friday II

I wanted to dye some yarn today and I wanted to document the process should I care to repeat it in the future. My camera, however, is out of batteries. But my Flip video recorder isn't! So, for today, you get a video blog post on my attempt at kettle dyed yarn.

Not What I Expected

Pay no attention to the sun and lack of snow, that's gone now...

Hmmm, this turned out more muted than I expected after the nearly glowing brightness I got out of the yellow overdye. It looked a heck of a lot brighter in the dye pot, that's for sure. Perhaps it has something to do with orange and brown being closer together in the color spectrum. I'm really intrigued by color theory, perhaps this requires further investigation.

Regardless, I have a few patterns in mind already for this yarn. Although a new pair of socks will have to wait until I get some of these WIPs off the needles. I'm almost finished with DW's scarf except I discovered yesterday that I did not work enough pattern repeats at the very beginning. So guess who gets to learn how to graft cables?

Coming soon: WIP updates all around and another FO.

Dye Day Friday

I get most of my dyeing done on Fridays since I get to work from home.


2 skeins of Knit Picks Memories in Smores. You've seen this set up from me before. I only have 2 skeins left that I haven't overdyed. I wonder what's next...


These should make some pretty spectacular tiger stripe socks. I'll post more color accurate photos once it dries. The best part of dyeing yarn in the wintertime? I can just plunk the dye pot down into a snow bank to cool.

I Left You Hanging

I just realized I left ya'll hanging. I promised you another dyed yarn three posts ago. Well, here it is.



It's just an overdye, but I think it's pretty cool. I took some Knit Picks Smores and tinted it yellow with Wilton's. All the brown parts got darker and the white sections turned a deep golden yellow. You could kind of call it a test run for my self-striping yarn.

In browsing FOs made with Smores on Ravelry, the contrast of the white against all the brown sections of the yarn is really quite stark. I think adding the yellow will give the finished item (maybe some Jaywalkers?) a more complete look. I've also noticed quite a bit of the Smores colorway up for trade or sale on Ravelry. I personally have 4 more skeins, so maybe if I like this look knit up, I'll get some more for a larger project... maybe a baby surprise jacket.

I'm Such a Copy Cat

First off, thanks for all the well wishes, I'm feeling MUCH better than a week ago. I still have a lingering cough, but I feel alive again. Now on with the knitting content.

Last week it was an exact copy of the Sorta River Rapids socks by LisaRadunz. Now I've gone and copied Micah's bitchin tiger-style yarn. I can't help myself!



It should - hopefully - self-stripe into brown and yellow stripes and be totally awesome. I dyed this up late Friday night and Saturday morning, but of course, I didn't take any pictures until I was winding it up. That doesn't mean I can't tell you all about it though! Warning, this gets a bit rambly...

The set up
The base yarn is Knit Picks Bare - Merino Wool Fingering Weight a.k.a. the same yarn as the discontinued Memories line, which I love. It comes in one large 440 yd hank, and I thought I'd be able to wind it into two hanks directly, but it was NOT working out. I ended up winding a huge center pull ball, then setting that on the floor and winding around my kitchen chairs - alternating 5 times each - to set up the stripes. It was a pain in the ass until my hands got the hang of what to do to keep the yarn from popping off the chair backs. It probably took 30-45 minutes to wind the two hanks.

What I learned #1: tie the yarn off in lots of places. I only tied it in two places on either side (here's where photos would totally help) and it made it much more difficult to rewind the yarn after dyeing.

The dye process
Earlier in the day, I was lucky enough to find the perfect jars for dyeing striped yarn. They're Ball half-gallon wide-mouth jars, I got a pack of 6 for about $10 at ACO Hardware. Three of them will fit snugly into my dye-pot, so I could potentially do four different colors (three in jars, one in the pot), but that would be a bit of a risk.

I used Wilton's food dye, about 1/4 tsp each of yellow and brown. I filled the jars about half way with dye and water, then put the separated yarn inside and filled them to the top. I placed the jars in the pot and then filled it up too. I used our new probe thermometer to monitor the water temperature per the instructions found here.

What I learned #2: The jars need to be elevated off the bottom of the pot they're in or the water trapped underneath boils easily, and therefore moves the jars around when the hot water escapes.

What I learned #3: The water outside the jars gets much hotter than the water & yarn inside the jars. Put the probe thermometer inside the jars.

What I learned #4: The stretch of yarn between the two jars will wick water (and dye!) out of the jars and into the dye-pot if it droops down. This happens when the jars move about, see #2.

What I learned #5: Vinegar helps. When I pulled the yarn out of the jars the next morning after it cooled, there was still quite a bit of dye left in the jars. The yellow was all yellow (being a primary color) but the brown was more interesting. I believe brown is made up of red and green together and different colors move into the yarn at different rates. When I pulled the yarn out of the brown jar, it was brown, but more of a reddish-brown. And the water still left in the jar was kinda greenish-brown. According to pie-knits' instructions, you're supposed to add vinegar half way through the process to help with the uptake of the dye. But with my set up, there wasn't room in the jars for more liquid and even so, I couldn't have gotten the vinegar into the jars without pouring it directly onto the yarn. Once I pulled the yarn out and saw there was dye left, I had the opportunity to add the vinegar and re-heat the yarn. The water was crystal clear the next time. Amazing how that works.

I rolled the finished yarn in a towel and walked all over it to get as much water out as I could, then I hung it in the bathroom to dry. Once it was dry, I laid it out on the couch to wind up.



After a few tangles, I managed to get the yarn oriented correctly and had a much easier time winding it up. I really, really, really wanted to re-skein this instead of winding directly into a CPB, but I was afraid the tangles would drive me mad and the CPB would be easier to manage than a large chunk of cardboard. Ah well, there's always next time. Speaking of which, I have two more hanks of un-dyed yarn left, what shall I make next? I thought briefly of orange and green, but something tells me someone has already done that too...

Up next, a sweet over-dye and some socks updates.

Oh Yeah!

So I dyed my first yarn this weekend and Kool-Aid man was right there with me. It was pretty fun and I'll definitely do it again. It was also a lot quicker than I thought. I ended up dyeing the yarn twice to get a richer color. I started with Lorna's Laces in the Sweetie colorway. Here's a before shot:

I got this out of a clearance sale at knit2purl2.com. She was out of the colorway I wanted and substituted this. Definitely not a color I would wear. Anyways, here's the result after 4 packets of orange Kool-Aid and 2 packets of cherry.

Much better! I wanted the yellow to be orange - check - the pink to be red - check - and the purple to be a lot darker - check! I'll probably end up knitting this up with some black to subdue the colors even more (I don't think I could pull off orange, red and purple socks) and I think it'll look pretty cool. All in all a successful experience at the dye pot. You can check out more pictures of the process here.