I dyed more yarn. I think this recent dye spurt was spawned by the functioning microwave, and I'm getting a little bored with the hooded sweater since it's all knits and a little shaping, so that's getting a two day break. Don't worry I'll be back at it very soon. You see, I like the thing.
Here on the left is three more hanks of dyed Barrington mohair doubled stranded with a wool yarn. The fourth hank was previously 2/7 alpaca/wool blend in grey but is now a reddish brown. On the right is the Dover wool overdyed again with blue. Right now the Dover is still wet, so it looks darker than it will be. I'm still not happy with the color, but I think I can make a stripey scarf with it and the newly dyed alpaca/wool.
And here I dyed some 100% cotton chenille type yarn. It was Ironstone Celebration in Sablewood (on the left), and on the right is after dyeing (still wet). I have six 4 oz hanks of this stuff. One is now rose colored. Four are still Sablewood (a little too teddy bear-like for my tastes). One is in the process of becoming lavendar (I was aiming for a dark blue, but alas I think the blue dye is dysfunctional or something. Also, I don't have any soda ash, so that very well could be the problem with dyeing the cotton. But that doesn't explain the wool dyeing disaster.
But, onto tattoo sharing. Being behind the times in this whole knit blog universe, I didn't discover Rachael's (Yarn-a-Go-Go) KniTattoo Gallery until yesterday. Mine's at the bottom. Since nobody has any idea what it is, I'll tell you: a goat fish. That's Capricorn.
And blogification. I've perused a bunch of blogs yesterday and added some to left side links, so I can start reading them. I also updated the pictures in the galleries including a ridiculous picture of my yarn stash (not including recently dyed yarns). That does not include yarns I've given up on and will most likely donate to charity. And hrm, looking at the picture, it doesn't really look like *that* much yarn.
I also added recent comments on the left, so I can see if anybody actually comments (I've missed a lot of them because they weren't obvious before). Thanks, commenters. I love you all.
I might one day take a picture of my roving stash... I dye a lot.
Beautiful dyework on that yarn though. With cottons, the soda ash makes a big difference. It doesn't "fix" and it bleeds continuously. If you have retayne, I'd suggest using it to help fix it... but nothing really beats soda ash as a fixative. Are you using non-iodized salt as a leveling agent with the blue-thats-now-lavendar? I'm assuming that's cotton chenille that you're talking about there. You might want to try a little Glaubers Salt on the blue to make it take darker. If it's a bad lot though, not much can be done.
With the blue wool yarn, if it's not a "pure" blue dye, sometimes the blue just "strikes" at different times, lighter and darker, causing not-aimed-for results that are sometimes red, browns, and other not-aimed-for colors. Also, hard water/soft water, additives to the wool that doesn't usually affect dyeing but hiccupped... could be anything really. (sigh) Wish I could help.
Sorry to yap so much!
Posted by: Kae at July 29, 2004 12:35 AMThanks, Kae!
The blue that I overdyed the wool with is a pure turquoise. It's just coming out very muted and dull, and it seems that no matter how much I add, the yarn just won't take any more. I know that wool isn't supposed to take the MX procion as well, but I haven't had as much problems with other wools I've dyed. Hrm.
As for the cotton, I know that's due to a very very bad dye process on my part. I basically didn't have any of the materials for dyeing cotton except the actual dye, so I thought maybe soaking it for a really long time would work. It didn't really, but the end color isn't any worse than it began at least.
Posted by: c at July 30, 2004 9:53 AMWell... turquoise procion MX is a weird dye, which explains a lot of the problem. Turquoise basically requires either a 24 hour soak *before* fixative, or glauber's salt for it to set in any fabric that's not high end cotton. I've dyed a lot of wool with MX dyes because I have a ton of them from back in the day (laughs). Turquoise and any color that I've made mixing turquoise (or that the powder contains turquoise pigment) has problems with color saturation. Sorry I couldn't help more!
Posted by: Kae at July 31, 2004 3:15 AMGlad you left a comment on my site so I could check out yours! That chenille is so lovely I wish I could hug it :) I am so impressed with those who know how to dye yarn. It is just fabulous!
Posted by: Amy at July 31, 2004 11:13 AMWow, that's good to know about the turquoise. Thanks! I haven't really tried to perfect any dyeing technique, but maybe I'll be bit more scientific about my process next time instead of throwing in a bit of this and a bit of that. :-)
Posted by: c at August 3, 2004 2:15 PM