Adventures in Dyeing!

I've spent the last good while coveting and drooling over handdyed yarns. Gorgeous colorways and combinations of color that make me go oooooh....anyone who knits or crochets has been there. But they're always sooo expensive! Sure, they're worth it, but we can't all shell out that kind of money. I definitely can't.
After running across the fact somewhere that people dye with Kool-Aid, I decided to work up the courage to try it myself. That time's finally come.

Before I was ready to attempt it myself, I've spent a good amount of time gathering resources. It's helpful to know what direction to go in before you try it out. Some really handy tutorials are over at Knitty KnitPicks and a pretty useful tutorial over at A Beautiful Life

I read and reread these articles, and others, and visited some groups on Ravelry, just trying to soak up the details of how to do it. When I started earlier, I discovered very quickly that this isn't like knitting, there's no pattern. There's just what to do and what not to do, and then you, your yarn, and the colors you choose. Everything else just happens as you go along.

I decided to approach it in small doses by test dyeing only a little at a time. My method would be microwave dyeing. My first attempt was overdyeing (dyeing a yarn that is already colored) some Patons Classic Wool Merino, a bit over 2 yards. Mine was a light blue when it started out.

I soaked it a bit then tried the hand-painted approach, I put it out on a grocery bag and dabbed it with bits of grape, lemon lime, and black cherry. Now, I learned the hard way that you want this yarn to be fairly damp when you do this, and when you go to microwave it, for the love of God don't add it to water! (which I might or might not have actually done...)

The result was (okay, so I did that, duh..) that the colors ended up seeping out into the water, and swirling around a bit as the yarn soaked up the dye, so I got a bit of a heathered look. I like it, but it wasn't at all what I wanted.

At this point, my water wasn't clear. It actually wasn't anywhere close to clear. I wondered what would happen if I took my second yarn (Condon's Wool in a very light tan color) and just added it to the purple-ish water. I took a little bit (7 yards) and just plopped it in there, and put it back in the microwave for a few minutes. The color instantly took to this yarn (this is obviously the winner yarn here). I had a solid very light purple red yarn. What would happen if I handpainted some green on it?

I made sure the yarn was very damp, and very gently added small amounts of green to it in sections around the loop. then i spooned a bit more water on it to help dampen it, and put it back in the microwave (without water added, obviously!)

This was that result:

By testing, I learned that it works best for me to get a solid color then try to add others to it, but would that work for a lot more yarn? This third dye is about an ounce, I think. It came as an addition to my 4 oz skein of Condon's. (I'll measure it for sure when it's dry and ready to ball up, so we'll know for sure then)

First I soaked it for about 20 minutes in just warm water, to allow it to get really damp. Be careful not to use too hot water, or to agitate it in hot water, as you'll felt your yarn.

Then i removed the yarn from the water, mixed in some black cherry koolaid (about a tsp) and added the yarn again. The websites all say that it doesn't matter how much water you add, as it doesn't dilute the dye any, it's all about the amount of powder to the amount of yarn. I've been using small amounts because I'm dyeing small amounts, most sites recommend a packet of koolaid per ounce of yarn.

I put my yarn back in the microwave for 2 minutes, then let it sit in the microwave for about 5 minutes, and then repeated the process again. The next time, I took some grape, about half a tsp, and added it only to the part of the water in the middle and mixed it a bit, hoping to get a darker turnout in the middle.  This is the time where I added the grape.

Overall I repeated the microwave process about 4 times (over the commercial breaks of LOST) until the water was clear. All the tutorials say that the water will be clear, and boy was I shocked to see that it was actually clear!

This is the end result:

From what I can tell, the grape didn't really take in the middle, it probably just blended in with the overall coloration.

Now, because I can't be ultimately happy with one gorgeous solid color, I had to take it further. While soaking the yarn in some water, I took two coffee cups and mixed some dye in them, one grape, the other lemonlime.

From my second testing, I remembered the black cherry taking the lemon lime well. So I decided to see how well it'd take it. I put about half a tsp of dye in each cup, and making sure the yarn that wasn't in a cup was really damp, put it back in the microwave for 2 minutes.

After two trips through, I brought it out and covered it with the pyrex dish (that the cups are sitting in) and let the yarn steep a bit. After about 10 minutes, it had soaked up all the green dye (with little result) and was working on the purple dye. I added the rest of my green koolaid (about another half tsp) and put it back in the cup and put the pyrex dish back on top. About 10 minutes later, the water in both cups was almost clear, and I had this:

The green isn't entirely saturated all the way through, but it's a nice representation. The darker end is a bit of a light purple. I'm quite pleased with the end results, and can't wait to try some more!!!

Adventures in Recycling...

I've wanted to recycle my own yarn forever, but I haven't had the courage to try it before now. I found this really excellent tutorial on the process the other night and summoned up the courage to try it. I went out thrifting yesterday and found this glorious sweater at Goodwill. The yarn's a 60/40 Cotton/Acrylic mix, and the colors are dreamy. Plus, it only cost me $2! (sorry, the picture's icky!)

When shopping, I checked for 1)types of seams 2)weight of yarn (I really wanted heavy worsted yarn, lots of sweaters are made with smaller yarns and I didn't want to go that way on the first try) 3)price (because why pay a lot for it when I don't have to!)

If you want to try this yourself, it's important to know what to look for before you get started. There are only certain sweaters that can be unraveled, some can't be due to the way they were constructed. I can't get a good detail shot of the seaming, I'm expecting that's partially due to the colorway of this sweater, and also my lighting. Look at the tutorial above which shows really good detail example of the types of seams to look for. Once you get that down pat, the rest should be easy.

So, I've got my sweater with the right seams, and I started unraveling. The tutorial says to cut it, but I'm kind of a chicken, so before I started cutting, I spent some time with a small crochet hook unlacing it a bit. You can see the fine thread that the sweater's sewn together with, and once you know how to look for it, it's easy to cut. The sweater pulls right apart.

When I got to the sleeve section, I found that the sleeve would come straight out, just like frogging stitches. This is the hole where the sleeve would be attached.

After the sleeve is seperated, I went across the shoulder and around the collar. The collar was horrid! At this point I've figured out that the stitches used to connect all the pieces are slip stitches, and that if you can find them on the side and cut every few stitches, it comes apart easier and you run much less risk of cutting the sweater yarn. Once I finished the neck, I went across the other shoulder, back around the second sleeve, and back down the other seam.

Here are the 4 pieces, two sleeves and the front and back panels.

After this, I looked around for a corner, found a tied off spot, and started unraveling. :) This is the yarn from the front and back panels, I'm guessing it's about sport weight.

I haven't unraveled the sleeves yet. I'm excited about giving this sweater new life. I'm thinking the yarn shown here will be a nice scarf, double stranded, and the sleeves could definitely make some gloves. It's sooo soft, so some nice stuff will come from this.

I love the process and will definitely do this again! :)

Just Popping In...

I really dislike that I let my blog go, sometimes for weeks at a time. I just wish there was more to blog about. My life is all about the Owls, the HPKCHC on Ravelry, and work. That's about it. lol. :)

Today was a nice break from the normal, as my bf and I went to see Star Trek with a friend of ours. Being that the movie theatre is (in another city) near a Hobby Lobby, I also side tracked and bought a bit of yarn. I needed to get Gryffindor colors for a House Unity project I'm doing in the Cup, but it turns out that what I ended up buying could've been purchased at my local WalMart.

Go figure.

I did get a gorgeous skein of green Caron, it's Simply Soft Shadows. It's neat because it's a solid color with a series of different colors twisted in. It works up gorgeous. Well, Shadows does. I've never used the green, but I did get a grey once, called Mardi Gras. It works up like this:

(Note that you can click that to see it still in my Etsy shop :))

This is the green version. Isn't it gorgeous?

I also bought KNITTING needles. Yep. I'm ready to try it again. (it was a terrible disaster last time). I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes, and also how my crochet projects are coming along. I'll be better, I promise! Happy crafting!