Category Archives: Dyeing

Dyeing workshop

There has been lots of dyeing going on round here lately, although not all of it by me. At the March meeting of the Ash knitting group we had a dyeing workshop. Janine led the demonstration of dyeing with Kool Aid, Lisa on dyeing with food colouring (she uses icing dyes) and I did acid dyes.

We set up three big tables in the hall, one for each type of dyeing and Janine made up lots of mini skeins of Wensleydale wool. People started off at the table of their choice, then after finishing one skein, moved around to one of the other tables to try the other sorts of dyeing. I think everyone got a chance to try out each of the types of dyeing if they wanted to, and several people managed multiple skeins.

Here is everyone hard at work. We are very fortunate with the Victoria Halls in Ash since it is a nice big room with plenty of space to get between the tables, and the lighting isn’t bad.

And here is my table of acid dyers. I mixed up all the solutions before the workshop to simplify things a bit. Plastic milk bottles make great containers for dye solutions and you can write on them with marker pen so you don’t forget what is inside 🙂

I loved seeing everyone’s different colour choices and methods of application. What a lot of fantastically creative people we are lucky to have come to the group. Here are some of the skeins drying.

I am looking forward to seeing what everyone makes with their yarns, and hopefully we have given people a little taster of different types of dyeing.

Dyeing fibre

Baby surprise jacket

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I actually finished the knitting for this back at Christmas, but it has taken ages for me to find buttons I liked. Finally Mummy found some good ones so here is the finished jacket.

I love it, and hope that the new parents-to-be will too, and that it will fit ok. There is still another month to go, but I will be seeing them this week so will ask them whether they would like it now or after the kiddie is born.

As a recap the yarn is 4ply weight, 80% superwash merino, 20% bamboo, dyed by me with Jacquard acid dyes.

I love this pattern so much I have already started doing tension swatches for an adult-sized one for me.

More cuteness

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I actually finished these over Christmas but have been very slow at taking photographs.

When I finished the knitting part of the Baby Surprise Jacket (I still need to find some buttons, so it doesn’t count as properly finished yet), I had nearly a whole ball of yarn left and thought it would be rather nice to have matching booties.

The pattern is Multicoloured Sockies by Maude Smith from Socks Socks Socks: 70 Winning Patterns from Knitters Magazine, but I tinkered with the pattern a little. My yarn was thinner than that specified in the pattern so after a trial run which ended up as a Christmas tree ornament, I decided to cast on 12 sts and work 22 garter ridges for the sole, using 2.5mm needles.

I also didn’t work the holes for the drawstring, and decided to go straight into 2×2 rib for the leg. Hopefully this will make a good practical cross between a shoe and a sock, which will be easy to get on. They are so cute!

Snowiness

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Like the rest of the UK we have had unaccustomed snowiness over the last few days. It started on Sunday night:

and by Monday looked like this:

This is definitely the most snow we have seen here since we moved in. Paul’s work had emailed and told everyone to work from home unless it was critical that they made it into the office so we put on our warm clothes and stayed indoors. At lunch time we went for a walk around the village to assess the situation.

The station was closed:

But there was some surprisingly industrious snow enginnering going on. Unfortunately I failed to photograph the large igloo in progress on the village green, but did photograph the snowman on the common (for reference Paul is about 6 feet tall – that is one tall snowman! Click the picture for the full effect).

It was very beautiful but a bit cold, so after a circuit of part of the common we came home and dried off and had hot chocolate 🙂

The snow is definitely on its way out now although I am surprised by how well it has lasted.

And now to justify the knitting blog part – well not actually knitting, but ingredients for knitting at least. I mentioned that I had been doing some more dyeing while my parents were visiting. Here are my latest efforts. They are for some more experimenting for my next City and Guilds project, which is coming along, although slowly.

I am very pleased with the oranges, they have come out pretty much as I planned. The green was a bit of an experiment. This is the first time I have had a go with Kemtex acid dyes, and this is their green. It is quite a bit bluer than I was expecting, and too blue for this project, though it is a lovely colour. I have also been playing with the acidity again (me, obsessive, heaven forbid!), and I made the solution for the green a little more acid than my last experiments. One of the reasons for this was the discovery that if you make up dye solutions and then leave them for 3 months, the less acidic ones go a bit mouldy (although they do still dye the yarn fine). However since the acid fixes the dye to the yarn, and the stronger the acid the faster the fixing (this means that the colours don’t run as far), in this case the colour has hardly had a chance to get onto the yarn before it is being fixed to it, resulting in the inside of the yarn if you unply it being considerably paler than the outside. It is an interesting effect, and makes the yarn look slightly heathered which is pretty, but I think I will reduce the acid next time and aim for a more solid colour.

Some more thoughts on dyeing

Snow!

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We woke up this morning to a light dusting of snow!

It is definitely starting to melt now, but was exciting while it lasted. Sadly I wasn’t quick enough to dash out and make a quick snowman – not sure there was enough snow for it either, and I may possibly have frozen to death attempting to do it in my pyjamas.

All in all I have decided it is safer (and definitely warmer) to be inside today. I am going to catch up on some work, and hopefully also have time to do a bit of knitting. I am still fiddling around with possible colour combinations for my next City and Guilds project. Here is my sample so far:

On the black and while photograph it is easier to see which pairs of colours don’t contrast enough to really show up a pattern. Although I love the reds and greens together, and the dark reds with brown I think they are perhaps a little too subtle (you can stop laughing now about the idea of me being too subtle). More playing to go I think. I want to try out all the colours against the dark red next, and then all the colours against the lime green. Then I think I will try putting the darkest colours in one pile and the palest in another and trying them out against each other. After that I will have another assess of the situation and see whether I think any of the combinations have potential, and whether there are any obvious colour gaps. Then possibly a bit more dyeing, or time to try knitting some actual patterns. I think this should keep me busy for a bit 🙂

Seriously sweet

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Thanks to a lovely day of craft stuff last Sunday with Charlie, and the train journeys to and from the Maths in View conference last Monday, the Baby Surprise Jacket (from Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Workshop) is coming along well, and it is seriously sweet. Progress would probably be faster if I didn’t stop and admire it at the end of each row 🙂 or if Charlie hadn’t brought along the Fire Mountain Gems catalogue for me to drool over. At the conference I finally met Penny (lovely to meet you!), and did manage to do a little bit of knitting while each of the speakers were setting up. A very interesting day, thought provoking stuff.

Just the collar and the rest of the finishing to go. I am doing a 3 stitch Icord around all the edges because I really like the way it looks with garter stitch, and think it gives the whole thing a more finished look.

In fact I am enjoying this so much I think I might make a me-size one next, possibly out of the Wendy Fusion I bought at Ally Pally. I think it would make a good project for over Christmas, a nice lot of it, but doesn’t require too much brain so I can knit while chatting, and also while playing board games.

Dyeing solid colours

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I borrowed the Baby Burco owned by the West Surrey Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers and have been having an experiment with dyeing solid colours. This is for my next City and Guilds project. Each project has to be inspired by a different one of our art modules, line, colour, texture, shape, and form. My cardigan was inspired by the module on line, and my next project is going to be inspired by the module on colour. There are four projects we need to complete in total, but we can do them in any order we like. Two are garments, a jumper with set-in sleeves, and a jacket or cardigan with sleeves which are not set-in. Both garments must display different necklines. Then there is an accessory and an item for interior use. I am planning to do the jumper with set-in sleeves next, and have been collecting pictures of autumn leaves for my inspiration.

Here is the Baby Burco in action.

I also bought some pH testing strips to test the pH of the dye solutions I was mixing. The The Dyer’s Companion (Companion (Interweave)) says that I should be aiming for a pH of between 4.5 and 5, and as you can see from the strip below, I had a pH of about 2, which could explain a lot of things. I have been doing some more experimenting with how much citric acid I use, and reckon that actually you need relatively little to create the appropriate pH. Citric acid is actually more acidic than acetic acid (vinegar).

I used 4ply weight superwash Bluefaced Leicester wool, and dyed 100g of each colour to give me plenty to play with. My idea is to knit up some samples and try out different colour combinations to see what I like. I don’t have firm ideas yet of what I am doing, so am hoping that doing a few knitted samples will give me some thoughts. It could well be that some of these colours wont be used in the final garment, and that I might add in some others, but at least this is a start. I dyed 10 colours for my first go.

I had quite a lot of trouble dyeing the kind of orange I had first been aiming at. You need a surprisingly small amount of red dye in with the yellow. I do like the couple of much darker oranges too though, and am looking forward to experimenting with all the colours.

I have started a little knitted sample but haven’t got very far yet.

I’m afraid it has been rather dark here, and the colours haven’t come out properly. The paler green near the bottom isn’t mint at all, but rather a paleish grass green. The 2×2 spiral idea is from Janine Bajus, she calls is speed swatching, and it is a nice quick way to get an idea about whether colours look reasonable together or not, without having to worry about the pattern. If you cast on 4n – 1 sts (where n is any whole number) then it will all spiral automatically with no effort whatsoever 🙂 In this case n = 20 so I cast on (4 x 20) – 1 = 79 sts. Big enough to get a proper look at how the colours are coming out, but small enough not to take forever. My plan is to do a few of these speed swatches, or perhaps just one long one, to give me some ideas for colour combinations. Then to work out possible patterns and try them in the most likely of the colour selections.

I started this on Sunday at our City and Guilds class, it was good to have other people’s input, and I agree with Fiona that this brown isn’t right, and that a redder brown would look better. I’m not yet sure whether I want a brown at all though, or whether I will have the darkest colour be the dark red, so I think I will do a bit more swatching and thinking before I dye any more colours.

Talking of Sunday, I got my cardi back from assessment and it is all fine (whew!) though I do need to make sure to do more art, and fewer photographs for the next projects.

Baby Surprise Jacket

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I have finally cast on for a Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann for a friend’s baby. Luckily the baby isn’t expected til April so I am doing quite well. The yarn is 4ply weight, 80% superwash merino, 20% bamboo that I dyed a while ago. Here is the progress so far.

The yarn is very nice to knit with and has held up very well to being undone and re-knitted. My first attempt was laughably large. I admittedly don’t have any captive small children around to measure but the first attempt would have almost fitted a small adult. I think my error was adding in way too much ease. I am calculating my own numbers for this since the original pattern is written for yarn knitted at 6 sts to the inch, and my yarn gives 8 sts to the inch. I think it is looking ok so far. I like how the colours are coming out too.