i like lemons

You know how when you are cooking soup and it just isn’t turning out right? You just start adding things in hopes of correcting whatever isn’t right, more and more goes into the pot, and before you know it, it’s totally not what you expected. It turns out better.

The second attempt at home-dyed yarn started out with Kool-Aid. I decided to use up all the packets of Kool-Aid and doing things on the stovetop this time. I put 2 packets of grape, 2 packets of black cherry and one packet of strawberry into a large stockpot and added cold water. Then, in went two hanks (100 grams each) of the bare worsted yarn from Knit Picks. I heated it slowly until the yarn soaked up the color. The color turned out about the same shade of pink as my first try. Pretty, but I don’t really go for bright colors most of the time.

Time to pull out the Wilton icing gels. I remembered from dying eggs that the black gel actually produces a purple color, so I mixed up about a 1/4 teaspoon of the black with about 1/2 cup of vinegar and some water. Removed the yarn hanks from the pot, mixed in the “black” dye mixture (which looked green, actually), and replaced the hanks. That made things more purple, but I thought “let’s make it darker”. Too lazy at this point to remove the hanks from the pot, I mixed up more dye/vinegar/water and slowly poured it into the pot, gently moving the hanks to the side with a spoon.

(There is a tutorial for dying with Wilton icing gels at Keep On Knitting In The Free World if you would like to follow a guide with step by step instructions.)

Once the water was almost clear, I turned off the stove and let the pot cool down to room temperature before rinsing the hanks. To get the vinegar smell out, I gave the yarn a cold water swish in some B&BW aromatherapy shampoo and then a really good rinse. Worked great. No more vinegar smell and just the slightest hint of jasmine/vanilla.

The color is a variegated warm-toned purple with bits of pink and fuschia. I think the initial Kool-Aid and the fact that the pot was a bit crowded led to the variegation. One thing to note, under CF lighting, it looks like a brighter red-purple (the fluorescent light sucks all the blue tones out). I shall dub this color “grawcherry”.

I also dyed a couple of hanks with just the Wilton black and vinegar. It came out a mix of cool-toned purples and blues, with hints of green and fuschia. Again, crowding in the pot probably contributed to the color variegation. I like the muted colors of this batch better than “grawcherry”. I’m calling this one “plue”. I think I’ll use plue when I attempt the Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks Scarf.

More pictures at Flickr

Spring is here, as my red, itchy, teary, swollen eyes and sneeze attacks can attest to. We are starting to have near 70F degree days about once a week. With all the rain this year, the trees and weeds are spewing forth pollen like crazy. My black car is now a sickly yellow color.

Dyed some hanks of yarn last week and was able to ball them up over the weekend. Pictures and thoughts in a blog post this weekend. Overall I’m happy with the results, but I do feel as if I need to branch out into other colors, maybe earthy greens and browns.

I’m using undyed Knit Picks yarn to make Maryse’s Gathered Scarf. Might try dying it once it’s done, but I kind of like the natural color too. Ah! I just noticed that my wip picture has the inverse color scheme as Maryse’s :).

Wavering on the purchase of a DSLR. I had thought I was pretty set on the Canon Digital Rebel Xti. Now I am considering the Olympus Evolt E510. Buying any camera seems like an extravagance for me.

Living on a busy street has its moments of excitement. The other week a car crashed into an apartment building across the street. The car flipped, but it appeared no one was seriously hurt. Remember people, shiny side up!

All I want to do is sleep, sleep, sleep.

Last week I tried dying yarn with Kool-Aid for the first time. The tutorials at Knitty and Keep On Knitting In The Free World were my guides. I am pleased to say I managed to not make a mess or stain myself.

I tried the Kool-Aid dying on the leftover natural marl Patons Classic Merino (100% wool) I had from knitting the Scrunchable Scarf. The store didn’t have many flavors/colors (no blues or greens), so I went with grape, black cherry and strawberry. I also did a test on some Lion Brand Wool-Ease (80% acrylic/20% wool) with the leftover Kool-Aid.

The Patons took the dye very well. The Kool-Aid even got rid of the nasty chemical smell that had plagued the skeins of Patons. The Lion took the dye too, though to a lesser degree. I knit swatches of each and after five handwashes, the Patons has stayed colorfast, but the Lion continues to bleed.

I’m not sure what I’ll use this ball of yarn for; maybe a simple ribbed, black-striped scarf. I have ordered some plain yarn from Knit Picks to continue experimenting. Here are a few reminders for next time:

*Use the top part of the broiler pan (that allows for drainage) so that any dye that isn’t immediately soaked up by the yarn doesn’t pool on the underside of the hank and make muddied colors.

*When setting the color in the microwave, heat for 1.5 minutes, cool for 5 minutes. Do 2-3 cycles.

*Play around with my old Wiltons food coloring pastes and vinegar to dye the yarn.

*Try making self-striping yarn.

top: Patons; bottom: Lion

More pictures at Flickr