Earlier this week I picked the first Oxalis of it’s – the Oxalis’ season. I don’t think that this really qualifies as a “season” but what I’ve observed locally is: Fennel blooms and continues more-or-less to late Spring to Fall and Oxalis blooms late in Fall and continues to Spring. (Glove on the hand because I am a total weather-wimp.)

And since I’m writing this on the (United States) Thanksgiving Day holiday, I will note that one can always be thankful for a consistant, reliable dye plant that dyes wool, cotton and probably things I haven’t tried yet. (And the bees like it too!)

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Another blog post shamelessly “borrowed” or re-blogged from InvisibleGaijin is this post about the latest Tokyo men’s fashion: dyeing your hair to match your fur collar. I love both the fashion itself and the reporter, who claims that “man skirts” are so last month. This photo is a visual love poem to the Tokyo Metro.

Yep, the whispering was a surprise birthday party for moi!  I had no clue.  Even when Lake was ushering me into the house, I actually thought he might be staging a yarn intervention! 

So after a wonderfully exhausting Saturday, I relaxed and spun yesterday.  I hate to admit this (because I love the color), but got kind of bored spinning the Plucky Knitter Honey Wilkes sw merino.  I like color changes. I can’t help it.  So I pulled off the partial bobbin and plunked on some of my own dyed sw merino.

Then I re-watched the how-to-navajo-ply on a wheel video again and holding my breath, gave it another shot.

Not so bad-

154 yards sport weight

I am still cleaning up from the party. Popping balloons (40 balloons-seriously?) and unwinding black crepe paper (de-crepifying per the husband!) from the banisters.  Then spinning!

The recycled hand dyed yarn got a new life:) I’ve knitted a pair of mittens. Berries and chocolate:)

Today’s Fiber artist is Ray Whiting from Knitivity.com. I hadn’t heard of Ray before Lisa suggested him for a feature, but I have since become very glad that she has. Not only is he a talented dyer who runs a great shop, but he also has had the life altering experience of living through hurricane Katrina.

He kept a journal throughout the event and it’s posted here. Warning, don’t start reading this unless you have some time on your hands. It’s not short but it is very compelling and poignant.

Knitivity itself has some very interesting features, for instance it has the only superwash lace weight yarn I’ve ever seen. (And now that I’ve seen, I seem to have developed a burning desire to own- such is the life of a yarn addict.) He dyes all of his yarns in really intriguing colorways; everything from Dirty Mechanic to Cats Paw Nebula. He also dyes to match artwork and photographs. You have to see the results – amazing!

Another feature that I haven’t seen before Knitivity is Dicey Knitting which is basically implementing special dice instead of a pattern. This sounds like it could be a lot of fun, but you have to be committed to it. I’m a control freak so it would take a lot of effort for me to just sit back and let the dice tell me what to do, but you know, I think I would enjoy the process.

Ray also supports local charity, and if you have a local charity you knit (or crochet) for and you are wondering if you could get a discount or bulk deal on some of your supplies, check back later on, because there are details during the interview.

Now to finish off the summary of this great guy and his lovely store, what kind of shopper would I be if I didn’t share some of the deals??

I really enjoy this stocking, it just looks like so much fun! Ray knit this stocking personally and is giving it away. To win the contest all you have to do is either buy 2 skeins of sock or lace *or* $50 worth of stuff.

The reason you only have to buy 2 skeins of sock or lace yarn, is that the 2 will no longer put you over the $50 mark because they’ve been discounted $3!

And… if you buy a skein or more of “Dura-lace yarn” (that’s the superwash laceweight I was talking about before) you can get the pattern for the Limberlost Trails Shawl free!

P.S Remember to check us out at 6pm when I have a Q&A with Ray himself!

I dyed four skeins of yarn yesterday!  One of them is grapefruit-colored, because I was inspired be learning that pamplemousse means grapefruit in French.  Isn’t that a cool word?  The other three skeins are just whatever colors I felt like dropping into the crockpot at the time, which is my usual dye process.  I think they all turned out lovely!  I’ll have to wait and see when they’re dry whether I want to keep them, gift them, or sell them.  Also, S gets dibs on any that inspire her.

Here is the finished 2-ply sw merino from my hand dyed roving. I think it turned out pretty well, despite the loss of yardage to the horrid n-ply attempt.

Looks like a candy cane to me!It is as soft and squishy as it looks!

I’ve gotten into painting fabric. I dye on a regular basis but lately I have been busting out my Lumiere paints. They work remarkably well and are ridiculously easy to use. I have a basic starter kit with 12 colors that can be blended. The only issue is the texture of the fabric afterwards. It is left with a plastic-y feeling and is kinda stiff.  I guess it is a compromise for the brilliant effects of the paint. I can’t show you what I am working on because it is a secret Santa gift.. uh oh… I’ve said too much….. I hear the fabric Gestapo at the door…

Yesterday was my birthday & I spent at least part of the day spinning on my Lendrum.  Only fitting since the wheel was my birthday present.  But because I am horribly spoiled, I got a dozen roses too! 

Here are the latest yarns:

The JulieSpins merino roving in the colorway Polaris -It was 6.1 ounces (yet another reason to love JulieSpins, her rovings are usually always more than 4oz.) and I spun the singles laceweight. After 2-plying, I ended up with 610 yards of light fingering weight yarn! Wow! It is the most yarn I have spun yet! I managed to get it all on the large plying bobbin with room to spare. I think that sucker will hold 800-900 yards easy. 

Partial bobbin of singles

Large bobbin after plying

Big fat squishy skein!

I also spun up the Ashland Bay merino/tussah silk roving I got at SAFF.  I snagged it on my frantic runthrough.  Remember SAFF was pre-wheel, so I wasn’t sure what I wanted to get, but I had read a post on Ravelry that talked about how nice the Ashland Bay silk blend was to spin.  “Drafts like butter” stuck in my head. One vendor had a little over 3oz. left so I grabbed it.  I spun it into fingering weight singles with the intention of leaving it singles.  Unfortunately, I overspun it.  I think it will still be okay as a single yarn, but it would have been much prettier as a more loosely spun single.  Also, I did not find that it was all that wonderful to spin. It was nice, but not as nice as the indie dyed silk blends and seacell blends I have been spinning.

Before

After-330 yards

I also spun up the playing with red & scarlet sw merino roving I dyed last week.  Here are the singles (again you can see my little overspinning tendency!)

Candy cane striped singles

I attempted to navajo ply this at first (mainly because after finishing that 610 yards of JulieSpins merino above, I was too lazy to wind this onto a second bobbin to 2 ply). Disaster. I am still not absolutely sure what happened, since I was able to successfully nav-ply the Dragonfly Fibers silk/merino earlier, but this time it was just a mess.  I used the regular plying head at the lowest (slowest) ratio and the yarn still got all crazy twisted up. My loop kept closing on my finger and I broke a nail trying to rush and stop the wheel. It was so bad that I just stopped, wound it off and decided to 2ply the remaining singles.  Managed to get 150 yards of DK/Sport weight in the 2 ply.  Probably could have been another 50 yards or so if I hadn’t mangled it.  Oh well, that is why I dyed up the merino to practice on.  The yarn is drying now after setting the twist last night.

ON THE WHEEL TODAY:  The Plucky Knitter sw merino in the Honey Wilkes colorway

The Plucky Knitter SW Merino "Honey Wilkes"

Icelandic fleece dyed with Kool-aid, various mixtures of purple, red and orange.

I have been doing a lot of experimenting with color in the last few weeks.  The top and most of the following pictures are examples of dying with Kool-Aid.  I normally prefer experimenting with plant based dyes, but the only dye plants I have available to me at this time come from the grocery store.  I have been acheiving interesting color combinations by mixing different colored Kool-Aid powders together.  The fleece pictured above was washed, then dyed using various combinations of orange, purple (grape) and red (cherry and cherry punch). I also added alum.  (I don’t think that alum is necessary to make the dye color-fast, but I buy alum in bulk and figured it wouldn’t hurt.)  After the fleece was rinsed and dryed, I carded it with cotton carders and blended the clouds together to spin.

Pictured above is the skein of yarn that resulted.  It is a strong, course Icelandic that I am currently weaving into fabric using a small tapestry loom.

This yarn (pictued above) was spun from white wool roving, then dyed using a combination of red and orange Kool-aid.  It was later knit into a pair of girls mittens that can be seen at my etsy shop here.

I’ve also been using purple cabbage as a dye plant.  Purple cabbage with alum creates a nice baby blue dye with a tinge of purple.  I think that it would be possible to get a purple if put in the dye bath a second time.

The following fleece was first dyed with mint, which created a subtle hue of light green, then dyed with cabbage.

]]> http://hobbiness.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/playing-with-colors/ Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:33:38 +0000 hobbiness http://hobbiness.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/playing-with-colors/

I’ve reclaimed a sweater from Goodwill. The yarn is nice, soft and pink… Too much pink for me, so I dyed part of the yarn. Here are the original pink yarn, yarn dyed with purple and yarn dyed with brown color. I like the result, the yarn looks like berries with chocolate:)

This collaboration team comprised of four girls.

We found that our shared passion was TEA.

We thought that the tea culture was an apt subject to study for a collaborative project. In Britain, many of our social events revolve around tea.

Tea is also used to soothe difficult life problems.

We used our various creative talents and interests to inspire the project.

All of these objects were created collaboratively by the team.

My personal study over this time, was to experiment with different kinds of teas as a paint or dye.

Yep, I did dye.
The superwash. I was only going to dye half a pound, but I decided to do the whole pound (split into four, four ounce pieces). Here are some in progress shots and one finished braid (it was the first one to dry and spent a little time hanging like garland on the mantle over the fireplace!)
I think the one is a bit dark & dreary-like a swamp thing type dye job, but other than that, I am tickled with the results. All kettle dyed. The superwash is awesome because I was able to stir it around and flip it over, etc. I am always terrified to handle merino because it will felt.

Drying

swamp thing drying

Side one of braidSide two

Dye.
Dye wool, that is. My Crown Mountain Farms order finally arrived. Well, the partial order-no cashmere blend until December. But I have two pounds of fresh creamy white superwash merino and BFL sitting in the downstairs closet.

Now the angst-what colors? Kettle dye or spot dye?

I think I am going to start playing with the superwash since I haven’t bothered to acquire a thermometer yet and I don’t think I will felt the SW merino. I haven’t messed with BFL yet, neither dyeing nor spinning.

Cross your fingers.

Everyone knows you should dye with clean fabric. But if your dye still streaks after you’ve run it through the wash, then your laundry detergent probably isn’t doing the trick. ‘Clean’ fabric is free from chemicals that interfere with the dye process, like sizing and preservatives. But there are interfering chemicals in laundry detergent too—chances are the Tide sitting on top of your washing machine at home has color-protecting additives and ‘Mountain Breeze’ or ‘Cuddly Lavender’ scent (okay, I’ve never seen ‘Cuddly Lavender’.)

 Try using Synthrapol, a scouring agent that also comes in handy when you’re rinsing your fabric. Not only does it clean your fabric before you begin to dye, but added to the rinse water after dyeing, it also removes excess dye from your fabric that will end up on your skin or on that nice white fabric you have on your costume.

Sometimes, fabric will need more than one scouring wash with Synthrapol. To check that it’s clean, use the water-droplet test. For most fabrics, if a drop of water sits on top of the fabric instead of getting absorbed into the fibers, your fabric still has some residue.

You have your fabric, you have your dye, and you’ve read the directions on that back of your RIT dye box. But even as you’re doing this, you feel uneasy. Why? Because you’ve heard that RIT dye is fairly unreliable but it’s one of maybe two or three options easily available on the market.

If RIT dye didn’t work, trust me, I wouldn’t be so nice when talking about it. But it does work, you just have to keep in mind some things that might or might not be on the back of that box.

 1. Clean your fabric beforehand. You can’t expect your fabric to absorb dye if it still has the sizing and preservatives that make it look pretty on the shelf.

2. Consider temperature, concentration of dye, time, and amount of water in bath. RIT’s directions, because they seem to aim for simplicity, are pretty vague. Do you know how much your fabric weighs? Will denser fabric absorb dye differently? Are they telling you the truth when they say that following the recipe will result in exactly matching the box color? And, how hot is ‘hot’ water, by the way? You might have to experiment with test fabric before you go in for real. Luckily, RIT is pretty cheap.

3. Wet your fabric completely before you put it in the dye bath.

4. Stir. A lot.

5. Fabric will be about two to three ‘shades’ darker in the dye bath wet than when dried.

6. Don’t skip the rinse baths. Excess dye bleeds and smudges onto other fabrics, like the ones the other garments in your costume are made from.

7. You cannot dye everything with RIT, and colors of incredible intensity cannot be achieved with RIT. For neons and blindingly bright colors, you have to step into the realm of not-so-scary, but plenty annoying fiber reactive dyes.

Introducing, my lovely puppies: Okanagan Wine, Turquoise, Turquoise Light and Burnish Kelly.

Lady sings the blues, not me, but I could dye some yarn blue: Violetta blue.

I cast on Bloom’s Cap-Sleeved Vest in my Autumn Green, started with the cable waist. Love the colors.

While having fun knitting and dyeing yarn, I still realise that I’m really behind my paper work at …work and house work at home.

I realy don’t want to work. I just want to play!

My sixth attempt at hand dyeing yarns. I dipped the yarn into violet, then teal dyebath.
It’s still wet. Love to see how the colors turn out.
My Sunday blue has gone. I’m so excited.
Kim said I was like a witch doctor with her colored brew.
So mean!