I had a weird experience just now. I finished up that little pre-felting project, and I had nothing on the needles. No socks, no wips, etc. Well, I do have *one* wip that won't be touched for months-- I've been knitting Shimmer from Knitty in Cascade's Pima Tencel (#1353, cornflower) for forever and a day-- I gave up once the weather went cold. Its totally a warm weather shrug in this yarn and I can't bear to finish something I won't use right away.
Anyhow, so we do as those who have nothing to do.
We dye yarn.
Henry's Attic Kona Superwash, again-- 4 oz skein
Dip-dyed method
(2) ice blue raspberry, (2) berry blue, (6) arctic apple -- separated in about 20" sections (the HA hanks were 60" long!)
Of course, I didn't have 3 pots to use (well, I did but I hate having to wash a bunch of pots and pans at 2am.) And I only had 2 big mason jars. But as everything in my life is duct-taped, jury-rigged, rubber-banded or otherwise made to work when the instructions are printed in japanese, I improvised.
After giving the yarn a soak in warm water and vinegar, I set my dutch oven boiling with about 4" of water and set the mason jars inside with about 4c of water apiece. I added the blue colors and some vinegar, let it come to about 130F or so, turned the burner off and dipped the first 20" into the berry blue. It didn't take up the dye as insanely as the orange did, but it was pretty quick to get to a watery blue. I then moved another section into the ice blue, keeping a bit of the berry blue soaking (not worried about variegation in solids), and let that exhaust while dipping back and forth between mason jars.
All the while, I was holding the final 20" section undyed, above the rest.
Once both blues had been exhausted... about 5 minutes? I moved one mason jar to the sink, added the packets of arctic apple and vinegar to the water that was resting hot in the dutch oven, and dyed the last 20" green.
I have a few white patches in the green section where it meets the blues; I should have done the green one first and could have compensated with the blue-- the green is very light and I knew I'd need more/it would exhaust more quickly than the other 2. But all in all, fun and fun.
I think this yarn wants to be a pair of River Rapids Socks from Sock Bug. (pdf!) It'll help me get some more cabling under my belt for the Knitting Olympics, and hopefully I'll learn cabling without a cable needle too.
[edit... oops! pattern isn't cabled at all!]
Anyhow, so we do as those who have nothing to do.
We dye yarn.
Henry's Attic Kona Superwash, again-- 4 oz skein
Dip-dyed method
(2) ice blue raspberry, (2) berry blue, (6) arctic apple -- separated in about 20" sections (the HA hanks were 60" long!)
Of course, I didn't have 3 pots to use (well, I did but I hate having to wash a bunch of pots and pans at 2am.) And I only had 2 big mason jars. But as everything in my life is duct-taped, jury-rigged, rubber-banded or otherwise made to work when the instructions are printed in japanese, I improvised.
After giving the yarn a soak in warm water and vinegar, I set my dutch oven boiling with about 4" of water and set the mason jars inside with about 4c of water apiece. I added the blue colors and some vinegar, let it come to about 130F or so, turned the burner off and dipped the first 20" into the berry blue. It didn't take up the dye as insanely as the orange did, but it was pretty quick to get to a watery blue. I then moved another section into the ice blue, keeping a bit of the berry blue soaking (not worried about variegation in solids), and let that exhaust while dipping back and forth between mason jars.
All the while, I was holding the final 20" section undyed, above the rest.
Once both blues had been exhausted... about 5 minutes? I moved one mason jar to the sink, added the packets of arctic apple and vinegar to the water that was resting hot in the dutch oven, and dyed the last 20" green.
I have a few white patches in the green section where it meets the blues; I should have done the green one first and could have compensated with the blue-- the green is very light and I knew I'd need more/it would exhaust more quickly than the other 2. But all in all, fun and fun.
I think this yarn wants to be a pair of River Rapids Socks from Sock Bug. (pdf!) It'll help me get some more cabling under my belt for the Knitting Olympics, and hopefully I'll learn cabling without a cable needle too.
[edit... oops! pattern isn't cabled at all!]
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