The Craze of Colored Potions (Dyeing Wool)

Oh how deep I have fallen into the fiber hole. First, I learned to knit. Then, I mastered making my own yarn on a drop spindle. Obviously, the next step is to own a spinning wheel. Wait, two are better than one right? Wool comes from sheep so let’s add a few sheep to the farmette. Turn around twice and a few sheep becomes close ten, and oh, spring lambing will multiply that number. Sheep mean work, daily care, lambing, hoof trimming, the chore with the biggest learning curve—shearing,  washing, picking clean, and carding my wool. Woe! There is a lot of time involved it that. Maybe some years it makes sense to send the wool out for processing.

Now that all the work is done, it is time for the magic to begin. Dump, pour, swish, and dabble, add warmth and patience, now the color is no longer in my potion but has transferred itself onto my wool. The magic of it is contagious. No, I don’t always get it right. Surprises can be both good and bad. I believe there are enough dyeing methods to keep me busy learning the rest of my life. I feel a little witch like concocting my potions, I better practice my evil laugh.

 I’ve only been using food dyes, but know that the colored potions hole will be both deep and wide. No, this is not a neat, tidy project, but through pictures and explanations of them I hope you will be able to catch some of the magic of it.



Supplies: What I use 1. Wood cook stove with
                                     warming shelf.
                                2. Two quart glass jar or
                                     jars.
                                3. Vinegar and water.
                                4. Kool aid packets or
                                    Wilton icing colors
                                5. Soup can and plastic
                                                                   
                                                                            clothes hanger.
                                                                                                 6. Glass casserole dish

Step One: Fill jar about 3/4ths full of water with a swish of vinegar added to it. I never measure either of these exactly. Put in lots of Kool aid  packets (can even mix colors) or a dab of Wilton icing color. Put lid on jar and shake until mixed well.  Should look dark like above picture. You can no longer see through the jar.

Step Two: Skein or loop your yarn around two chair backs and tie it so it will not tangle. It will be in a big long loop like later pictures show. Now put it into the jar. The flash makes the yarn show up inside the jars better than it does in real life. Push in down so it is all covered by the dye.



Step three is patience let it sit. I usually let mine sit all night. In the morning I wake up to a jar of  colored yarn sitting in almost clear water. The yarn will only hold so much dye so if there is still dye in your water remove yarn and place more yarn in the dye jar.

Here are pictures of the yarn in the morning. Notice the clear water in the jar. *Note* Jar
on far right in left picture has nothing to do with dyeing. lol It is a science experiment.



This is a picture of the wet yarn. I ring it softly out by hand. You can see the almost clear water in the bottom of the bowl.












The next step is to hang, weight the wet yarn, and let it dry.  Here is where I use the hanger and soup can. In the picture you can see that I have plenty of dye left in my jar for another round of dyeing.  Also, it is interesting that the cotton yarn I used to tie the wool doesn't really take the dye. You need to use another method for dyeing cotton.

 

The last Step happens after the yarn is dry. I lay it in a glass casserole dish and place in my oven of wood cook stove for ten minutes at the temp of 250 degrees. I set the timer for five minutes, turn the yarn over in the dish at that point, and set the timer for another five minutes.You are only suppose to have to heat treat it once to make the color fast. Just for good measure I heat treat it two mornings in a row. I do it in the mornings while my fire is still warming up. After all that work I don't want to burn it.

On the left are two yarns dyed in the same dye batch. Lighter one was a white hand spun "unknown" wool and the darker one was a gray Finn wool just like I  used in my son's Christmas hat this year. Only it is spun finer.        .                                                                                                                                                        
The yarn in the right picture is hand spun white Icelandic.
 I made a big skein or loop of it and dipped different parts
of it into three different dye jars. Thus making a multi colored
yarn.                                                                                        

The far left yarn is naturally gray wool dye with blue Kool Aid packets. It might be hard to really see here, but it came out a cool denim color. On right yarn I used red Kool Aid packets over gray yarn and got a wonderful, earthy red heather.








You may even dye the wool roving like in the picture
below on the right.

 The left show a picture of three balls of  gray Finn wool that where spun and dyed with Wilton coloring. Notice the subtle shade difference. These can be a real plus. When you ply them to gather you get the heathered green yarn in the picture below.

Below is a picture of a project I am making with four plys of the red heathered yarn mentioned above. The neat thing about this picture is the yarn was originally the same color as the gray yarn in this picture before I dyed It.

Everyone has their own favorites. Mine are: I prefer to dye a single strand of yarn before it is plied. Dyeing over a light grey gets me the colors I like best. But I am in no way done learning yet so that may change. 

Have I made you want to mix up your own magic potions?

Knitting to Help Santa 2015

This year I thought I had Christmas covered, but certain events happened and I realized I was short of both gifts and money which over the years has occurred many times in my household. So since yarn, knitting needles, and ideas abound in great quantities at our house, it was knitted gifts to the rescue this year. Fingerless gloves and mittens seems to be the craze, and I know my tech loving daughter at college would probably enjoy a pair. Off to search for a “simple” pattern and to take a gander at what yarn can be found in my stash. Picked the pattern from the every expanding raverly.com. pattern base. Careful! It can be like falling down a rabbit hole. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cozy-cuffed-mitts was the winning pattern. Fairly simple because I don’t have to knit each and every row different . Been there done that. Found many, small tattletale (Can see they were spun on my Jenkin’s Turkish drop spindle.) balls of mernio single ply that had been spun years ago before I had a wheel. Somehow being some of my first spun yarn they never “looked” good enough to be used, but they jumped to the front this time because my color choices have thinned out some.  Plied some of them with a white wool and some with a gray wool I’ve spun recently, and Wow! Even my youngest son who help me run my ball winder was committing on how nice the yarn was. As usually there were sessions of knitting both forward and backward, thankfully knitting forward occurred more often. They were finished before Christmas and I tried to convince my daughter that since I knitting them it was her job to tuck the yarn ends into invisibility. She laughed at me and said, “But Mom, they are MY Christmas gift.” Guess who ended up tucking them in?

The mitts turned out well. They are a little big for her were the mitten and cuff meet, however considering she wasn’t here to try them on as I knitted I am pleased with them.  The major thing I would change if I made them again would be to use a thinner yarn, I wished the whole way through knitting the mittens I had double plied the yarn instead of triple plied it. Mainly just because she didn’t need a heavy mitten for sprinting between buildings at college.

Ah! Once started down a course one must finish it, a second pair of fingerless mitts were needed for her sister. Not being smart enough to choose the obvious and quicker method of knitting them both a pair from the same pattern, it was back to the raverly pattern search. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/scrappy-mitts was the chosen one, this time for two reasons. Reason one, my daughter had always told me she didn’t think she would like fingerless mittens because she dearly loves the knit each and every row different cable mittens that I made her, so these would make her smile and at least reach for them in fun. Reason two, they used little bits of different colored yarn which worked well with what was in my stash. I cast on and started knitting. Agh, only eight rows in and the can’t follow a pattern disease hit. Thus her mitten ended up based on the above pattern (which is well written), but entirely different. Needless to say I learn my lesson and tucked my own yarn ends in on these mittens. I mean why waste the breath to ask when you know you are going to get the look. ; )

Wait, there is yarn left over! A matching hat is always a good idea, so I made up my own hat pattern based off the mittens I made her. Finished it off with a little button on top, and reminded her she was loved as I tucked in all the yarn ends.  The occasional dreaded compliment was spoken. (Look out Mom! Cover your ears.) Hey that is cool. Can I have one? At times like these having a smaller number in the family tree would be handy. But what can I say, I would like one too.

My boys are not impressed with fingerless gloves. What good are mittens or gloves with the ends open? So I decided to knit my youngest a hat.  I tried the searching the ravery.com pattern base again. Just couldn’t find what I was looking for, so it was time to ask for help. Someone suggested the bun hat. (With that name I would of never found it.)  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bun-hat. I tried to start knitting it at night. Nothing was going right, too tired, so off to bed. Spent the next morning undoing the previous nights attempts so I could start fresh. Made a phone call to a fellow knitter for advice. (She keeps me in line.)  Finally, I wrapped my brain around how to enlarge the pattern. What fun this pattern was. My son picked out the design he wanted knitted into his helmet and we graphed it out. He also asked if I could put a red plume on top of it. The end result just makes me smile and causes a rousing, battle cry to silently rush through my head. Can you tell this hat was made for a child by someone who inner child is not buried very deep?

Oh by the way the gray wool is 3 ply hand spun Finn from our flock, the red wool is a from my stash and silver is a shiny, slippery yard sale find. (Not fun to knit with!) I balled six small balls of it on my ball winder. Putting each ball in a different zip-lock bag with an end sticking out. Took the bags to my spinning wheel and over spun it to get it thick enough. Put the six ply ball in it's own zip-lock back, and let  about two feet out to untwisted as needed. Pretty sure being willing to do that means I might be crazy, but the end results help make up for it's knitting difficulty.

My Original Elf Sock

Oh the joy and satisfaction of watching wool turn from roving into strands of yarn as it passes through your hand and off your finger tips, but now comes “the what do I do with it” part. I’ve plied the individual strands and made yarn, however my confidence in that yarn has yet to be tested. What to knit becomes the question. Socks? No, I don’t think the yarn will hold up to the wear.  A scarf? No, I hardly wear them. A hat? Do I really have enough spun for that? Plus, what if it doesn’t hold up to knitting and unraveling as I make up my pattern. A compromise is planned. How about a miniature sock? No one wears it out and I have a keepsake of some of my first “quality” handspun yarn. There is a learning curve that must take place before you reach the “quality” stage; well at least there was for me. Ok, a mini sock is the plan, but since I have more yarn than needed I feel comfortable with designing my own, because even if the yarn doesn’t hold up to being ripped out I know I have more.

 

How proud I am of my little, useless product. It reminds me of an elf with its pointed toe. That cuff needs something...think...think...   Aha! I have it buttons. Off to raid my old shell and bone button jar. Finished! Satisfied and smiling inside and out, my first project with my own homespun is done.

 

May I present to you the very first of my Elf Socks.

                                                    

And it all started from the first few balls of "quality" yarn made and plied on my Jenkins Turkish Drop Spindles.