Monday, 24 September 2007
So I wait...
Why, dye new yarn of course!
And change my mind entirely about which colourway to use for which...
So now I wait, patiently for the clues to appear so I can decide how to knit what depending on the style of each...
In the meantime I am trying to finish WIPs to make room and time, and yes, following the reading of Knit Kimono the gignormous Textured Tunic from Fitted Knits is being frogged despite being at "just missing the arms now" stage to hopefully become a still-heavy-but-more-wearable fan-pattern jacket.
All of that without any Sprout news..yet...*sigh*
Yes there will be pictures of yarns and swatch and fan pattern, and maybe even some of tiny bottle hats and Print-O-the-Wave lace... all in good time!
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
Dye-saster and the rescue mission
..Pause..
T'was Sunday afternoon before I was ready to get going.
At that point I REALLY thought the colour looked lovely.
An hour or so later the yarn was cooled and so I rinsed (with tell-tale red running out of the rinse), careful to avoid felting, and set out to hang it to dry...
"It's very green" I thought..."It's uneven" I thought... but still I decided to allow it to dry.
The next morning, after having peaked at it all through the evening hoping for a magical change I decided to cut a piece of the tail to look at later in the day...maybe the light in the bathroom was wrong.
But it was not. I knitted the foot-long piece of yarn into a tiny square, and there it was looking at me, Leprechaun-green lacy stockinette.
That evening I decided the yarn would be re-dyed. I had asked the mighty web , and an expert dyer for help-advice-support-well wishing.
Before I sealed the fate of the yarn I immortalised the green yarn monster...(turns out my phone does not do the colour justice it was much brighter than that for real! ...more like THIS)
I was keen to try and resolve the dye-saster last night so was pleased to find a clean kitchen and pot when I got in from work.
Having re-read the blog I based my original experiment on (add some red to tone the green..check) and taken into account my pro-dyer's advice (see her fab stuff at http://www.stormintheattic.com/ ) of 'uneven colour tells me the yarn wants salt'...and full of the determination that only the chemist and cook know when the recipe did not come out 'right', I started again.
The yarn was still in skein so I put it in a glass bowl and measured the amount of lukewarm water that would be needed to cover it (2L) and took back about 250 mL for dye dissolution.
The amount of vinegar according to the web is 60 mL for 1L of water,so 120 mL went into the bowl with the yarn.. at that point i remembered #salt# (how much...not sure. ok, let's go with 2tbsp...in the bowl it goes).
Dye (last time was Christmas green + spruce green, this time spruce green, dark brown and a hint of cherry for a total of about 2/3 teaspoon food paste) dissolved goes into the pan.
After 15 minutes the yarn was lifted from the bowl, the liquid was added to the pan, stirred and the yarn carefully added.
Slow heat, some very gentle lifting into the bowl then back in and after 50 minutes the dye bath had lost its reddish tinge to be left with some lighter green.
Left to cool to a temperature i can handle (because I was so impatient yesterday...normally i WOULD allow for full cooling) I rinsed with same temperature clear water and diminished the rinse temperature gradually.
The colour was there...and stayed there: a deep (although still wet)browny green that looked EVEN...could have I got it right on my second attempt?
The result will be confirmed tonight as the rescued yarn hangs,drying, in the bathroom (see how cotton takes the red but not the green..strange hey)...
Now to learn the secret to the lace cast on...