Still Stitching, but also Dyeing

I love knitting, and I can't imagine anything ever changing that. But, I have quickly become a big fan of dyeing. The first photo is of my Bored Board socks. The yarn was died with Kool-Aid and was my first attempt at any type of dyeing. The colorway is The Mad Hatter. My local knitting guild, Needles and Skeins, is doing a Swallowtail shawl KAL. It's supposed to be done in a lighter-weight yarn, but that's not for me. So, I dyed some worsted weight. This is Ballykissangel colorway. Now, this next example is KindaCamo. It's what happens when you think you have three hanks of the same yarn, and you don't. The colors are a bit too "off" to make it work with the rest of the yarn for the shawl. Autumn is the next colorway. It's my favorite season, in part because of all the colors. In person, there's more blue to this than what shows up, but it's still one of my favorites. I don't know what I'll make with it yet, but I already regret not dyeing more at the same time. And finally, we have Iolite. It's my favorite gemstone, and I couldn't resist trying to dye yarn in those beautiful colors.

From now on, I think I'll dye more than one hank of a particular colorway.

New Goings On

Well, I'm still dyeing. This time I used Wilton Cake Decorating colors. Now, these are not the ones usually found in grocery stores. These colors are found in cake decorating stores and in cake decorating sections of craft stores such as AC Moore and Michaels. There is a wide variety of colors available, and of course you can mix colors to create your own.

I also tried a new dyeing tool: the slow cooker! Piece of cake. It certainly doesn't get much easier, unless you're using the Kool-Aid "sun tea" method. The only problem I had was keeping the yarn submerged during the first 20 minute soak. I finally put a plate on top of it to hold it down. I'm not sure why this happened, but I think it might have been because there wasn't enough water. I'm using a 4-quart slow cooker, and perhaps I should have gotten a slightly larger one. Another reason could be that I had the skein twisted a bit too tightly, which didn't allow the water to soak through efficiently and sink the yarn. Regardless, I'm happy with the results.

NEW STORE ANNOUNCEMENT

I want to call your attention to a new etsy shop opening at 8:00 PDT on August 8. Dizzy Blonde Studios features a beautiful selection of hand-dyed yarn. You can see closeups of the yarn here. I think we all should do our best to support independent dyers and spinners.