Wednesday, December 09, 2009

I DYED




Yes, I gave in and did some more dyeing before I have finished the other pair of socks using home dyed yarn. I wasn't in a good frame of mind and by the time I had finished I was.

I used food colouring on the Confidence, just in yellow. As you can see, it isn't yellow. For Sincerity, I originally started off using blue Kool Aid but it was not even. So I re-dyed it using blue food colouring. This was much better but when I washed it, the excess dye that came out (despite the original dye water being clean after nuking), stained the undyed portion, which is not what i wanted so I dyed again (but didn't go to Heaven.)

I am pleased with both and they are knititng up nicely. Still stripey.

Confience is really nice as it knits up as the orange does fade to yellow and back again. It all blends in rather nicely.

Sincerity is also stripey but with flashes of the blue.

So far, I have used a different technique for each of the 5 hanks I have dyed. (actually six as one of them was in fact 2 x 50gm hanks.)

I have some acid dyes and I shall use them next time. I won't be using food colouring again me thinks.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

You're really getting into the fun of it--not knowing exactly what the result will be, and over-dyeing to get it closer to what you want.
I'll be waiting to see these knit up.

Iris said...

These are just beautiful! Good going, Colin.

BammerKT said...

Those are just beautiful. I look forward to seeing the socks knitted up.

I hope you won't take this as bossy, but the acid dyes are very toxic in powder form, so wearing a scarf over your mouth and nose while they're open is a little safer. Once they're mixed with water, they're supposed to be safe.

Wouldn't want anything to happen to you!

DonnaC said...

Absolutely yummy! Can't wait to see the knitted products!

anachronist said...

Yay, you discovered the benefits of 'dye'therapy ;-)

I can be in a really bad mood and then get out some soft white wool, the dyestuff, mess and splash around, nuke the stuff and feel so much better afterwards :-)

I second the safety precautions but a scarf will not do to protect from the fine powder particles. A facemask to be bought in a home builders market (used for spraypainting) fornot much money is way more safe.

Brigitte said...

Those hanks look beautiful already.. I hope that we will get pictures of the finished results ;o).
My guess would be that you used too much dye with confidence (pun intended). Yellow is v e r y intense, a little goes a long way (ask me how I know).
Is that a true black in Sincerity??
Brigitte

Linda C. said...

Colin, have you been keeping a "Dye-ary"? I haven't done any lately, but I posted all my combinations and efforts, so I could remember each technique I used.

Yarnhog said...

Ooooo...I love that blue-green!

Can I ask what you're using for yarn?