Has it Been That Long?

While I was pulling out the dyeing equipment yesterday I tried to remember the last time I dyed. That's one reason why I blog. Just used my search tool and found it was over a year ago!

I have some roving I want to dye, along with two blanks from Machine Knitting to Dye For's self-striping hat. I had in my mind a blue-green, red-orange, and some shade of violet. I looked back at the samples I did a couple of years ago to use as a starting point. In fact I still had some of those 2 yard lengths of 2/8 wool I used back then.

I like to use the clear measuring lids from liquid detergent to mix up the 10ml samples. After putting a few drops on a coffee filter I sopped up the rest with several yards of yarn and dumped it into a ziplock freezer bag. I steamed the bags in the roaster oven using empty tuna cans to keep the rack above the water level. I need to turn it up to about 450 to keep it steaming nicely. I worked on the three sets separately because I wanted to let the paper dry to help me decide in which direction I needed to go.



After letting the bags cool overnight I wrote out Tyvek labels with the dye formula and then slit the bags - they tend to look like they've been shrink-wrapped - and immediately slipped them through the hole in the label before washing.



What I like about this method is that the uneven dyeing of the yarn gives me an idea of what DOS I want to use.



Where the yarn sat in a puddle of dye gives a good prediction of a 3% DOS while the lighter shades would be accomplished with .5%DOS.



I always need to slip in a little green!



Who would have thought that I am getting the best color representation when I take pictures in my basement? I think it's the combination of the cheap flourescent shop light hanging to the side of the table, an incandescent tree lamp to the other side and non-direct natural light coming through the patio door. The colors, at least on my monitor, are spot on. Now I think I need to work on some golds to spark it up a bit.