Sunday, August 03, 2008

The one with everyone dyeing*

Yarn drying outside


So this weekend was the big weekend. We all (meaning the majority of the knitting group) went to Nancy B's house and ate and dyed :) It was a lot of fun and I got really into it. The scientist in me got out and I was experimenting what would happen if I did this or that, ha ha.

Hanking yarn Nancy and Stephany hanking


I brought only one skein. It was a white skein of lace weight Icelandic wook (eingirni), but Nancy had a tub load of yarn. She buys it, dyes it and then sells it at Shows with her Mother-in-law. They also sell knitted items and felted item (made into purses and all sort of stuff). So we practiced on Nancy's yarn before we did our precious yarn and Nancy got all of her yarn dyed ;) I commented that we would also end up buying the yarn that we dyed back from her at a show ;) he he

We also had some good food and Nancy taught me how to fry zuccini ;). We knitted into the night. I was actually the first one to go to bed. I'm so used to waking up early with the kids.

Retro clint


While I was there I manage (finally) to separate Clint's jacket at the sleeves. Now it's just knitting the body down to the waist. I say just because although I have 366 stitches on the needle, it is a vast improvement from having 466!

Curious on how my skein came out. Here are couple of photos.

eingirni handdyed purple Yarn dyeing purple


I wanted it to be variegated so I put the kool-aid mix in the bowl first and then layed the yarn on top. I pushed on the top of the yarn so it would all soak, but the bottom was submerged in the dye while the top was in air. It was heated in the microwave for 2x2min with a 2 min break in between. Super easy. You don't even have to use vinegar!

Yarn drying outside


I made 2 skeins with food dye (one neon green and one regular green) and then I needed the vinegar. The vinegar makes the solution acidic enough for the chemical reaction between the fibre and the pigments to take place. Kool-aid has added ascorbic acid (vitamin C), which makes it acidic enough so we don't need vinegar.

Dyes


On Flickr you can see more photos. I had a great time (thanks Nancy) and the weather was good (for drying the wool after the dyeing part). The food was awesome.

*No, this is not a Friends episode altough it does involve a lot of friends.

5 comments:

Harpa Jónsdóttir said...

This looks like lot of fun!

Does anyone actually DRINK this Kool-aid?

Sigurlaug said...

Þetta lítur vel út. Ég hef lengi ætlað að lita, en aldrei haft kjarkinn (og kannski tímann?) til þess. Þarf að sjóða garnið í litnum? Gerðir þú það í örbylgjunni í 2x2 mín.? Er edikið sum sé sett strax í áður en garninu er dýft í blönduna?

Sonja said...

Með Kool-aid blöndunni þá þarf ekki edik ;)

Það er hægt að hita garnið í potti en það er líka hægt að nota örbylgjuofn.

Anonymous said...

Ég er alltaf á leiðinni að prufa að lita með cool aid, hægt að leifa krökkunum að gera líka.......engin hættuleg efni eða neitt! En veistu hvernig liturinn helst svo eftir að það er búið að þvo það? Dofnar hann mikið?

JóhannaM www.knittingmydayaway.wordpress.com

Sonja said...

Liturinn dofnar ekki meira en venjulega. Þetta er alveg alvöru litun sko. Þú sérð það þegar þú getur garnið úr örbylgjunni að vatnið er alveg glært, sem þýðir að allt litarefnið hefur bundist efnasamböndum við garnið. Ef það er ennþá litur þá getur garnið látið lit, það er þá betra að setja það aftur í örbylgjuna eða skola vel.