Cake dyeing

On Friday we got together for a dyeing day! Donna had everything ready for us to cake dye. The skeins above are Robin's and mine.

I did the dry method. My yarn cake was dry and I used dye power. I carefully wedged my fingers into different spots in the cake and poured dye power in. I used a few different colors in each and while I love how my skeins turned out I think I would use less dye next time. Mine are the autumn colors one and the black with green and blue, they are all darker and brighter in person.

Robin did a combo of wet and dry methods, starting with a dry cake and adding prepared dye, she did the center and then switched to the dry method and processed it as a wet skein. Her second one was entirely the dry method. 

The wet method started with a wet cake, then you would add wet prepared dye, then wrap the cake up in plastic wrap and steam it for like a half hour.

The dry method finishes with placing the cake in a crackpot bag, we added water with vinegar to cover the cake. We then partially closed the bags and cooked them for about an hour.

After the heat set, the cakes were allowed to cool and rinsed off. I was initially disappointed in my first one, but as I rinsed it colors other than black revealed themselves. 

I steam set and rinsed all the skeins again when we got home. Looking forward to seeing everyone else's skeins!

Self striping yarn post number one

yep that means there will be more!

As I mentioned in the newsletter, I am trying my hand at making a large stripe self striping yarn. The idea is you take one skein and break it into three (or however many you want) smaller skeins with the yarn all connected and looping from the first mini skein to the second to the third and then back to the first and continue to repeat this until you run out of yarn. I read about it and decided to try it.

The suggested method of doing this is to take two chairs, cover them with a towel to help the yarn not to slip and then wind the yarn around both chairs a few times. I did twice. Then move lower on the chairs and go around twice more, the lower and twice again. You then take the yarn back to the first set and wind twice more. Repeat until you run out of yarn. Does this work? yep. Does your back scream in agony? yep. Is it remotely easy to keep the yarn loops where you want them? NO! I did this in my parent's living room - their dinner room chairs are taller with more detail - which helped some. So did my Dad. Post two will talk (and show as I wouldn't forget my camera!) the help Dad is suggesting.

On to the dye pot. I used Mother Mackenzie Miracle Mix dyes for this in brown, blue, and purple. I pre soaked the fibers in Sythrapol and used a crockpot and citric acid for the dyepot. In this method you dye each mini-skein separately, but allow the dye to wick up into the connecting yarn pieces.

 It looks like a bit of a jumble here. Some of that is due to the chair wrap method. Some is likely because I had about 6 feet between the chairs.

 Brown is dyed and the purple is in the pot.

 Pulling the purple out!

 Dyeing the blue, the sponge is catching drips for me as the yarn is quite wet. I do think having the skeins hanging over the pot helps the wicking process.

 After dyeing the skeins were soaked again and hung to dry.

The yarn I chose had quite a bit of over twist, which I plan to correct before proceeding.

Julia

Dyepot - sunny yellow

Large jar full of Showy Goldenrod

Volunteer Sunflower-y flowers I used. If anyone knows what the birds planted in my yard, let me know!

Jars in the sun, no yarn yet.

Closeup of the Marigolds and sunflower-y flowers.

We start chasing the sun.

More sun chasing and the yarn is in there now.

Showy Goldenrod on the top, Marigold and Sunflowers on bottom. I did not take before picture but the yarn was bright white.

There was so much interest in my sun dyeing; I figured I would write it up. I harvested goldenrod – about as much as would fit into the large glass jar I used the dye in. Then added hot water and set it out in the sun. The other color was a combo of marigolds and these volunteer sunflower-like flowers that are growing in my yarn. I did the same to them. I got both jars going early in the morning. About noon, the water had started to color and I added yarn that I had pre-mordant-ed with alum. I left the yarn jars in the sun, and chased the sun around the yard a bit. I left the yarn in the solution overnight. The next morning I allowed the yarn to partially dry then rinsed by soaking in warm water for 30 minutes then set it to dry completely. This was commercially spun mohair.

have fun dyeing - Julia