Thursday 3 May 2012

To Dye for


Hello, I am doing a happy dance as today is my friday, as i am off work tomorrow until Tuesday due to the bank holiday, oh the possibilities that lay before me.

One of them is writing this blog post, which is mainly photos really.

So first i bought some undyed yarn from here the tutorial we used was this one which is one of my favourite podcasts might i add.



My sis Nicky had a kit she had from her days in Auz but it was well complicated so we headed to tesco for some food colouring.

before we went we soaked our yarns


nics is the one on the top and mine is the one underneath that look like it has all unravelled and will be a pain to reskein.





we got plastic cups and spoons too and rubber gloves and mixed the dye and tested them on kitchen roll.



we put the wool in the bag as the blog says with a little moat.

and basically jumped right in.







We got a bit carried away with the colours and when we stepped back we were a bit like erm I'm not sure i like this and why didn't we get a red dye.

But it was our first try. So the next step was to blast the yarn and the carrier bag in the microwave, both of our yarn was positively swimming in dye and it said to only put it in the microwave for 2 mins.


so off we went, we soon learnt which bags melt in 2 seconds and which don't.


so after the right amount of time, mine pretty much looked like a bit fat mess!

another 2 mins 



still a bit fat mess.

On the blog post she said that most of the dye had been exhausted but ours just wasn't going!

So we tried another couple of mins and gave up.

We decided just to 'rinse' it instead, so apparently no dye was supposed to come out here!

safe to say that didnt happen.





mine looked completely different like completely


Like really different!


As did Nics


Like all the black, yellow etc had come out and left a blue type colour.


Nics kept more of the dye.



So it is currently nearly a week later drying over the bath and its just about there.

Mine is a big tangled mess, bit unsure quite what we do next, obviously wind it back up.

So hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Next time we will go for 2 colours and just do half and half which will presumably stripe.

But we had lots of fun and it was a learning curve, it will be interesting to see how it knits up.

So there you go, if you have any hints and tips or anything let me know.

Hope you enjoyed seeing a bit more of our Craftanoon, i have a little more to share another day.

Thanks

Rachel x

1 comment:

Kerry said...

It's a game of trial and error I've found. I always soak the yarn in water that has a bit of white vinegar added. I've not tried doing it in the microwave. I usually do it on the hob with jam jars in a pan with individual colours in so each section of the hank gets a different colour or shade thdn let it simmer for about half an hour and then just leave it to soak it up for a few hours. Like I said though its all trial and error. I've tried kool aid powder too and that works really well.

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