Tablet Dyeing

Ok, here we go!

Last Easter, when everything was on sale, I grabbed about 5 boxes of tablet egg dye. I had some preliminary dyeing on my Cotswald and liked the results, for the most part.

So a few weeks ago, I was thinking about how to create an original and unique color way and my stash of dye tablets popped into my head.

Here was the idea: Ball or cake the yarn and slip tablets into it along the way. Heat up just water and vinegar and hope it soaked all the way through. Wait to see what would happen.

Questions: Would the vinegar soak all the way into the ball? Would there be giant white spots inside, on the left, right, etc.? Would the dye reach the outside of the ball and dye all the yarn? Would there just be too much dye leaving you with a strange combination and not sections of colors?  How long would these sections be?  How long would I have to leave it in the bath? Would I end up with a felted ball?

I had no idea.

Here's what I did:

I gathered all my supplies: my pot, my dye (I used 2 tables of each color I wanted to use), my yarn (some unknown yardage of Bella singles), and some vinegar.

I balled up the yarn slipping tablets in along the way.

I heated up my water and vinegar and slipped in the ball.

I let it roll around in there for quite a while. I think I had heat on it for about 40 minutes to an hour and then let it sit with the lid on for another three hours while my daughter and I went to visit a friend. Then I pulled the ball out of a sea of blue and put it in a small bowl to finish cooling (yes it was still a bit warm, but really I just didn't want blue fingers), and then let the ball sit overnight in cool water. I woke up to a lighter sea of blue in my fiber bowl, drained that, rinsed the ball again, drained, unwound the  ball and rinsed the yarn. I just let it sit, no squishing or squeezing since the yarn wasn't organized in any way and I didn't want a tangled mess.

 A few more rinses, then onto the Niddy Noddy for skeining and drying.

Answers:
Would the vinegar soak all the way into the ball? 
Yes. I was concerned I would have bits of my tablets still in the ball as I unwound it, but I didn't.

Would there be giant white spots inside, on the left, right, etc.? 
Sort of. There were white spots, but not huge ones. I did use way too much dye, that may have played a factor, or it could have just been that the tablets were inside, more experiments will be needed to find a conclusive result.

Would the dye reach the outside of the ball and dye all the yarn? 
Yes. It was so fun to watch as the vinegar soaked in to the top few tablets and I could see the bubbles coming out. The sea of blue was conclusive with regards to the dye reaching the outside though.

Would there just be too much dye leaving you with a strange combination and not sections of colors?
Sort of. I did get a nice mix on the outside and first few layers of the ball (this is one technique where color theory plays a bit role), but on the inside I did get good sections of color.

  How long would these sections be? 
Varied. Of course the outer sections of the combined color were longer, but once inside the ball, the sections got quite small. It would be interesting to see how the section length would vary with a larger ball, a cake, and more deliberate tablet placement.
 
 How long would I have to leave it in the bath? 
I don't know how long I needed to leave it in the bath, but I left it in there for about 4 hours, and that worked out fine.

Would I end up with a felted ball?
No. This will, of course, change with the heat and type of wool you use, but everything stayed separate this time around.

500+ Yards

I've spun 8 ounces of the 16 that my mother-in-law bought me of BFL. I have over 500 yards of a roughly sock weight yarn. This is a nice change, although my weight isn't changing too drastically, I am getting more yardage out of my fiber, hopefully that means when I knit with it it will be more consistent too.

I've said before I don't like pre-drafting, but I do like  pulling off the vertical sections. The result was some nice color match-ups while plying. Sure there were sections of barber poles, but there were also some decent sections where everything was all one color. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was fractal spinning, but I am excited to see how it knits.

Also, I love this colorway! I liked it as fiber when it was blue, green and brown, but now that it's spun it just kind of blends to an all over teal with brown accents. Again we'll have to see how it knits, but in the skein this yarn is gorgeous!

I still have 8 ounces to go, and I'm hoping I can get similar yardage. I had planned to do my Enrejado with this yarn, so we'll see how it all works out. I'm sure I can be short one repeat or something if I'm a bit short on the yardage. If anyone out there has made this pattern, let me know if you've used all 1050 yards.

America's Next Top Yarn Model

She finally put on something without sleeves, a big deal considering it was a whole 3 degrees out today. But eventually I did get my picture, even if my model didn't quite hold still.

"First project" of 2014

Here is a picture of the first project I finished in 2014.  It looks like a scarf or something, but it's actually a sweater I made for my daughter to wear to dance class, hopefully I can get an action shot of it at her class this weekend.

Details
Yarn: 3 skeins of Plymouth Yarn Royal Llama Silk in three colors
Needles: Size 5 dpns for the sleeves and 6's of the back
Time: About 3 weeks between other projects

This is the second shrug I've made with this concept. I modified it from a free pattern that was on a yarn label. Maybe, after a bit more math, I can figure out how to write the pattern for multiple sizes, and then I can post it.

I'm not going to call them Resolutions

Happy New Year!
 So I thought a bit yesterday about how much I learned last year, and I have to say I was a bit impressed with myself, but now we have a new year and a chance to start over, or at least continue some nice trends of stretching out of our comfort zone. So here are a few goals I have for the new year, at least the fiber-y ones...

Things to Knit

1. Kaleidoscope by Sarah Sutherland
2. Moscow Coat by Vladimira Cmorej
3. Enrejado by Kirsten Kapur
4. Tapiz by Spilly Jane
5. Pi Scarf by Christina J
6. Cotswald Bag

I'm sure there will be other things that come up during the year. I'd like to get a few pullovers in there, but that Moscow Coat is huge (though the yarn is on the way!) and I need to finish spinning for Kaleidoscope (which I technically started last year, but oh well), and the Pi scarf could literally go on forever, so that is all I feel I can commit to right now, but I'm sure you'll hear more about everything.

Techniques to try or learn

1. Felting/fulling
2. Chain Plying
3. Get better at processing
4. Tablet Dying

I need to get The Knitter's Life List to see what else I need to know. There are all sorts of individual patterns that I want to knit, but I'm not sure exactly how they play out with new skills. The tablet dying is an idea I have, but I need to get through a bit more of my Bella Wool so I have something to try it on, but believe me, you'll hear all about it.

Spinning

1. More
2. Finish all of the current fiber I have
3. Get more consistent

I have a lot of spinning to do. I am spinning alpaca for the Kaleidoscope cardi, and hopefully the pound of BFL my mother-in-law got me will spin out to enough for the Enrejado shawl, but I also have another pound of pure white alpaca (!) , four ounces of Malabrigo Nube (!), and the rest of my Bella Wool, and shearing season is only 5 months away...

Other Fiber Related Goals

• Blog more

•  This is to be a chronicle of what I learn, the things, I try, mistakes, successes, and all the steps in between. I won't get that if I don't stay consistent with what I am working on, even if I post shorted updates more often, and then a few or my more meditative responses when I can. So in the future, hopefully still a focus on pictures, but more updates, even if they are just a few sentences, and then a longer post every couple of weeks or so.

• Enter a Fiber item in a Festival
• I am hoping for something spun, but I'll take whatever. I have a great resource in my Knitting group about what to enter and where, so hopefully that will work out!
• Sell Something
• I don't care what really, a pattern, a finished product, yarn, anything, I just want to sell something, but I guess I need to start by making things available for sale first...
• Get in my hours!
• I think I probably have more hours than are reflected in my count, but while I do need to do more, I also need to keep track better. Either way, I would like to hit 800-1000 hours by the end of the year!

Year in review

Settle in because this is going to be long, but hopefully full of pictures...

It's the end of a year. I don't really know what all I finished before I started this blog in June, but I think it was mostly quilting things. I thought I would take this time to look at all the things I have accomplished (with fiber) this year.

First spindle, first Merino, very thick, but still soft

First attempt at dying with food coloring

First completed skein

Then there was the time I tried processing that raw fleece...

Socks for a friend

More of the giant spindle

Hand spun and hand dyed

New fiber, new spindle

Much finer yarn

Dying before combing

Finished skein

Yes it did get finished!

First pair of socks, first lace, first shawl, and first real skein of hand spun

Results of that dying project

The shawl is finished!

The results if a pound of Cotswald, a student spindle, and some food coloring.

Once it got processed, it came out nicely.

Plying

Novelty Plying

So many colors!

The hat got finished anyway...and a matching bag

I got a wheel!!!

Fiber Festival

Fiber Festival returns

Attempts at novelty plying and new dying techniques

Hand processed, spun, and dyed

Phone Cozy from the Festival

Mittens for Tiny, yes they got finished!

New York Fiber

I Spy a finished scarf at at least one mitten

400 yards of singles

New shelf for the future space

And to top it all off, something new, 311 yards of BFL, with about 9 ounces still in the fiber stash!

These aren't even all the things I've done. I also completed that Fair Isle Bag, another lace shawl, a long sleeved shrug, and a few other little things I am sure. I'll see if I can get pictures up today sometime.

Overall, I think it has been a very productive and educational year. I have grown so much as a knitter, trying all sorts of new projects and techniques. I started from scratch with spinning, and now am making decent sock weight yarn. I've learned about sheep from the Festival and The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook. It's been a good year!

I finished one!

So after months of not working on it, and it sitting in a box, bag, or other long forgotten location, it's done.

Draped on the tree; it is a Christmas present after all!

To be fair, I did complete many other projects since I cast this on, and as you can see below, it's not like a had help or encouragement from my family (two or four legged, most issues were brought about by the four legged members) to finish this. 

Yes, we put things on this cat, mostly to see if he will move or not.

 It really is a nice scarf. It's for my husband, made from a Caron yarn, that they apparently don't make anymore. It's called Natural Caron or something like that and contains 75% acrylic yarn and 25% merino yarn. It was my first venture into natural fibers and I started it...I don't even remember. I guess it had to be two years ago. My husband was working in VA, my daughter and I had come down from NY to visit for Christmas, I finished a Tumbling Blocks scarf made from Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick and Quick (back when it was 100% wool) and decided to make another. He said he wanted one that was thinner since the first scarf covered his neck and half his face when left unfolded, so I went to the store (I was still going to Michael's for my yarn then) and got this Caron.

I got home and pulled out all my knitting books and showed him all the different patterns available, including some online, and he picked a 4x4 basket weave. That's when the problems began. Man, basket weaves do look nice, and I really want to do something with a double basket weave pattern someday, but they are boring and tedious. At least that was my take. You switch between knitting and purling every four stitches, which is just long enough to want to start mindlessly doing one or the other, but then you have to stop. The repeats are 5 rows long, which again, is just long enough to start to loose track and mindlessly knit, but again you can't. So to sum up, it's not something you can do in your sleep, but it's not something where you have to pay attention to every stitch, and I guess that's where I am in my knitting now, I either want something insanely easy, like a bunch of stockinette stitch (preferably taken a step further to be knit in the round), or something fairly difficult, like lace, color work, or cables.

Closer shot of the dreaded basket weave

 I guess that means I have graduated to a new level of knitting. I used to be fine with minimally complex patterns like this, an entire ribbed scarf, or something like that, and the large amount of inches of stockinette needed for a larger project like a sweater scared me, but I have found the zen of stockinette and at this point in my knitting life, I would either like to be in that zen mode, or be completely ripped out of it by something difficult and challenging, not wade in the lapping waves of something you sort of have to pay attention to.