Category Archives: Dyeing

Resistance is futile

Heather on the telly

Back on the 21st of October I had a little jaunt down to Arundel to film a couple of programmes on dyeing wool with acid dyes for the new internet TV channel Knit1.tv.

Sadly I was my usual inane self and didn’t suddenly become witty and charming when put in front of a camera (well it was a nice thought). It was quite a fun day though, and although I was very nervous (when will I learn that I find any kind of performing very scary??), they were all very kind, and laughed with me rather than at me (or at least that is my interpretation).

The company that makes Knit1.tv also does several other internet tv channels, including one on beads, and one on miniature railways. The set we were using for the dyeing was one they often use for miniature railways, so it does look rather like I am dyeing yarn in a shed. Here is my beautiful pseudo-shed, with the yarn cooking in the steamer.

And here is my view from behind the counter, looking out to the cameras.

And here is the finished yarn.

100% superwash bluefaced leicester, 4ply weight.

They split my waffle into two programmes (because I go on, and on, and on), Part 1 and Part 2.

So if you have been harbouring a desire to see me large as life and twice as ugly I am there for your delectation! I’ve only just got my subscription password so I haven’t watched all the way through the programmes yet. Let me know if I say anything too awful. Luckily they didn’t have the camera on when I was dancing around between the programmes.

Handspun leaves waistcoat

Kool Aid socks

Yet another shade of orange (and another green)

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I have been playing with the dyes again for my stranded knitting project. One more orange and one more green.

This is the new orange between its two immediate neighbours.

The Kemtex Acid Dye in Yellow is definitely not as bright as the Jacquard Bright Yellow. They do have another range called Kenanthrol acid dyes, which have a variety of shades of yellow. I’m not sure what is the difference between them and the Kemtex acid dyes, but they might be worth investigating in future.

I think I have got the 12 colours for the background sorted now.

The new green was another experiment for a foreground colour. I think this one is very pretty but is too yellow for this project.

Here is the new green in the middle, with last experimental green on the left, and the original green I used for the knitted sample on the right.

I think I am going to have another attempt at dyeing a green which is more similar in colour to the one on the right, but more solid than I have so far managed with the Jacquard acid dyes. I do rather like the bluer one on the left though, it makes a good contrast with all the oranges and I think it is a definite contender.

I have now measured my tension from my sample, and started working out the charts – I think this will be quite a long process! I have a rough idea of how the patterns should fit in, and have worked out most of the logistics on my rough sketch. The charts themselves will take a while though, I am using excel and am not particularly fast. Have any of you used any of the knitting charting programs out there? If so what do you think of them? I have been looking at Knit Visualizer and have just downloaded the demo to have a play with. The details of how I am going to do the shaping will take some working out too! Hopefully I will actually be able to cast on for the real thing fairly soon.

A bit more pre-tour yarn

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I realised that I hadn’t shown you my first attempt at spinning sock yarn yet. I actually spun this before the red BFL. This is superwash bluefaced leicester again, dyed in the fibre, in a progression of colours, rather than a random mixture. I am hoping that as the yarn is knitted the colours will gradually shade from green through turquoise to purple. We shall see how successful this is!

There is 75g in each skein, and about 340m altogether. It measures about 13 wpi and so is somewhere between a 4ply weight and a DK weight.

I spun the lower skein first, and I think I got a bit over-keen with the plying of the second as it is plyed quite a lot tighter than the first. I’m not sure yet how much this will affect the finished socks. They may end up coming out slightly different sizes. I will just have to remember to wear the bigger sock on my bigger foot 🙂

More shades of orange

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On Monday last week I had another play with the dyes to see if I could make another pale orange and another mid orange for my Autumn in Anatolia jumper. While I was at it I also had another go at a green for the foreground.

These were the three colours I dyed. I am having a lot of trouble photographing them accurately, but this is fairly close.

The mid orange is good I think. I am a little concerned that the palest orange is actually nigh-on indistinguishable from yellow. The green is a beautiful colour, but I think still too blue.

Here is the new pale orange with the other colours it will be with in the sequence (the new colour is in the middle).

And here are the mid oranges. Again the new colour is in the middle.

Here is the new green on the right along with the last green I attempted on the left, which is 400ml of 1% stock solution of Kemtex acid dye in green, and which as you can see is a very bluey green. Then at the bottom is Jacquard Emerald Green, which is a lovely colour, but I had trouble with it being a bit blotchy. The Kemtex does dye very evenly and exhausts very well (which is very satisfying 🙂 ). The new green is 300ml of green and 100ml of yellow. For my next trick I think I shall try 200ml of green and 200ml of yellow.

Just for fun, here is the sequence of colours laid out on our dining table. As you can tell we don’t eat on the table often 🙂

I think I shall have another go at dyeing a pale orange since I think that step is still a bit big. I think the mid orange is ok, and I shall try to get a slightly yellower green.

While I had the dyes out I had a go at semi-solid dyeing my Dorset/BFL sock yarn I spun during the Tour de Fleece. I did this using a variation on the dyeing in a bag method Fiona showed us at her workshop. Her method was a cold dyeing method, but it adapted easily enough for hot dyeing. Boil in the bag yarn! I put the dye and the yarn in the bag and squished around, then left for about an hour and then steamed it as usual.

There was 250g altogether of yarn which I think was a bit much for my bag. I couldn’t mash the yarn round as much as I would like, so some of the skeins are more evenly dyed than others. The two smaller skeins dyed much more evenly, with the biggest skein being the most mottled. I like the effect though.

It was also interesting to see how the Dorset took the dye in comparison to the BFL. As you can see from this picture, the Dorset has taken the dye a bit (both the grey and the white) but not nearly as strongly as the BFL.

I am looking forward to knitting this up and seeing how it comes out.

Some more dyeing

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Back at the beginning of June I went on a dyeing workshop with Fiona Morris.

The first three samples are mini-skeins of 4ply superwash bluefaced leicester. They are all dyed in a pot on the stove, you sprinkle the dye powder in as the mood takes you but don’t stir while it cooks, creating a (totally unrepeatable) multicolour effect.

It was fun to do, but my control freak personality doesn’t really gel with this method 🙂 It is quite hard to predict how the colours are going to come out, and in fact they often change as the yarn cooks and more dye is absorbed.

Next I had a go at dyeing with fibre reactive dyes. These are the kind of dyes you use for plant fibres, and you use a cold dyeing method.

First some cotton dyed as a semi-solid in a plastic bag. You just measure out your dye, bung it in the bag, stick the yarn in on top, squish around for about 10 mins or until you have had enough, then leave it for half an hour.

It came out rather paler than I was expecting. The fibre reactive dyes don’t seem to exhaust as well as the acid dyes. I found it rather worrying how much dye ran out as I was rinsing.

Finally, using the fibre reactive dyes again, this was dyed in a tray, pouring the dye on and then leaving it. I was surprised at how well this one took the dyes. The yarn is 50% merino, 50% tencel, so I was expecting it to come out a lot paler as the merino wont take the fibre reactive dyes as strongly as the tencel.

A fun day. I enjoyed trying some different techniques, and being able to play with the fibre reactive dyes without buying a whole load of colours myself. I haven’t worked out what these are all going to become but I’m sure I will think of something soon 🙂

A bit of pre-tour yarn

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With all the excitement about Le Tour de Fleece I failed to blog about some yarn I finished shortly before the tour started.

This is some superwash Bluefaced Leicester dyed in the fibre by me. I used the left overs in shades of red and brown from the dyeing day at Ash.

I like how it has come out, mostly red, but with little bits of brown and a variety of shades of red. There is 232m and 100g and it is about a 4ply ish weight, bits of it are a bit thicker 🙂 It is going to become part of my handspun waistcoat which at the moment exists only in my head.

Le Tour de Fleece: Day Seven

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The cyclists did their biggest climb so far this tour, into Andorra, and I have crested my own little summit with my spinning.

I have finished my first full bobbin of the tour. Yes, the grey Dorset is finally finished! Only two bobbins of the white to go and then I can ply it and see what it will be like as yarn.

In honour of the occaision I have been playing at making mosaics with Picasa 3. So here is a recap of my progress on this yarn on the tour.

And another, because if a thing is worth doing, it is worth overdoing.

I ran my foot over with our side gate shortly after taking these photos while having a quick tidy up outside. It is a nice substantial gate. I am hopping around now (well not right now, since even with the laptop I can’t type and hop at the same time). I shall go and bathe it and anoint it in a minute.

I have been managing to do a spot of knitting in between all the spinning. I have finally finished my latest test sample for my current City and Guilds project. I was test driving how the colours work, and also testing 6 possible patterns, of which I will probably use 3. This is the project I have been dyeing all the colours for.

This is it in its unblocked, straight off the needles state.

These are the most likely 3 patterns.

And these are the three probably rejects.

As you can see the edging at the bottom edge is too loose. I think the top edge is better but now probably a bit tight. I am reserving final judgement until after it has been washed. The top edging is worked on smaller needles, which I think works well, but I think I decreased too many stitches.

I also think I need to introduce another couple of intermediate colours. Another medium orange about half way up to ease the transition from red to orange, and a very pale orange just before the yellow. It is coming along though, and I am looking forward to being able to measure the tension after it has been washed and start plotting out the final design.