Yarnalicious

I had a bunch of natural/undyed yarn on my hands from some sales over the last year or so, but it was sitting unused in my closet. Why? A lot of it was chunky weight, and while I used some of it for my Greywacke mittens and cowl, the Cascade 128 was too stiff for the bulky sweater/jacket I had planned to make with it. I also had 4 skeins of Cascade 220 in white, and while I like pure white for summer knits, I didn’t think I’d ever want a pure white winter sweater. (I guess they call it “winter white” for a reason).

So this week I took out my box of food dyes and Kool-aid and went to work.

Here are the results!

First, the Cascade 220, in colorway “Pimpernel,” which I achieved with cherry Kool-aid, a bunch of red and bright pink food coloring, and then some black food coloring, which I added after I had gradually lifted most of the yarn out of the pot. 

Next, I tried one skein of the Cascade 128 using Black Cherry Kool-aid packets and again the black food coloring for the end piece. I call this colorway “Serotina” (part of the Latin name for the black cherry, prunus serotina).

Then, I did two skeins of the Cascade 128 in colorway “Gawain” using green food dye: 

Next, I did a batch of “Yorkshire Gold,” so named because I added 5-6 tea bags (not actual Yorkshire Gold—that’s too good to waste) after first dying most of the yarn with yellow food coloring.

I added a few drops of purple and black food coloring to get the bownish color, as well as the tea.

The overall technique I used is shown here (for hand-painting techniques) and here (on Kool-aid, specifically). I primarily used the gradual technique shown on the first link. My main innovation was to add the black food coloring and/or tea for the ends, which helps when you are dealing with a limited amount of dye and/or non-professional dyes, I think.

Oh, and I found (by chance) that Selsun Blue shampoo takes the food dye off of your skin, with no rubbing.

Now I just need some small projects to knit with the chunky yarn. I have a few ideas for new designs up my sleeve….

Big League Chew is Gross (a dyeing project)

We've all been there: the big yarn purchase that you later regret, because the color is crazy, or the texture is weird, but in the moment you think, for example, this is awesome, this pepto-pink, lavender, grape-purple variegated lace yarn.

Seriously?

I'm having strong doubts about strongly-variegated lace yarn in general, because it seems to detract from the lace work. But this knitpicks gossamer, colorway "sweet peas," is the most vomitous colorway I've ever worked with.

It looks like that gum from my childhood, that came in "pink" and "purple" flavors--dump two pouches of Big League Chew on the table, swirl it all together and you get...this horrible yarn.

Something had to be done.

So I snipped the working yarn of my Zimmerman pi shawl; I unscrewed the needle tips and put on the caps of my knitpicks options needles; I wound all of the unknitted yarn of this colorway onto my swift to make two long hanks. I dropped the half-knitted shawl and the two hanks in the dyepot with a bunch of raspberry blue Koolaid and cyan food coloring.

It came out great. Thank god.

I'm still not sure about the variegation with the pi shawl though, because the ever-increasing diameter causes the colors to pool in not-so-awesome ways. I might end up dyeing the final product a darker color. But the other 1500 yards I have of this colorway look great, and will make a good rectangular shawl or baby clothes.

Quant FO and New Yarns

I plied and dyed a bunch of wool and alpaca--the yarn I started spinning in an earlier post. Mostly I'm experimenting with color--Kool-Aid and food coloring. I'm scared of non-edible dyes. And I'm having the most fun making up names.

Here's PryalSpun 50-50, color "Bordello." I'm thinking sexy armwarmers for this:


Color "Fireworks":


Color "Easter Egg" that has now been made into Quant:


Another view, on my head: