The Dye Pot

Spring Violets

Materials

Approximately 3 ounces Blauband sock yarn (80% wool, 20% nylon)
PAAS dye tablets: 2 blue, 1 violet
White vinegar
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Spring Violets

Soaked the yarn in tepid water, dissolved the dye in vinegar and water, poured dye bath into the crock pot and put yarn in dye bath, setting the crock to high. The dye took less than 2 hours to exhaust - this was a surprisingly quick job. The crock pot was turned off and the yarn left to cool. Then the yarn was washed and rinsed thoroughly and hung to dry.






This was another over dye of a color that I just finally decided I didn't much care for. The original color (as you can see above) isn't bad, but I wanted something with a little more "oomph" and that didn't resemble Victorian mourning quite so much :)





This yarn was oddly fuzzy and stuck to everything - my sweater, my fingers (which are a bit dry, admittedly), and itself. It was a real job to wind the skein on the swift and even more of a job to wind the balls once the yarn was dry. I will say, though, the yarn has a really nice, soft feel to it. It is also very fine - finer than I generally think of for sock yarn.





The swatch was done on size 1 US (2,25 mm) needles and could easily have been worked on size 0 US (2 mm) or even finer. My hands are up to the task but unfortunately my eyes aren't so this will probably be used doubled, or stranded with something else.

Notes: The yarn dried to an interesting combination of colors. Predominant is a muted blue-violet. There are also bits of blue-gray and muted magenta. As far as the crock pot goes, this has been the fastest job yet - no idea why :) I have some Schaeffer Anne in a royal blue...





...(on the right) that is also too fine a yarn for me to work with comfortably and I may put the two together to see what happens :)

Colored by Robbyn on 03/31 at 11:55 AM
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Silver Mauve

Materials

Approximately 3.5 ounces KFI Cashmerino (55% merino wool, 33% microfiber, 12% cashmere)
PAAS dye tablets: 2.5 violet, 1 red
White vinegar
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Silver Mauve

Washed the yarn in tepid water and dish detergent, dissolved the dye in vinegar and water, poured dye bath into the crock pot and put yarn in dye bath. Initially I set the pot to low because of the microfiber content (more about that below, in the notes) but turned it to high after about 20 minutes. The dye took about 2 hours to exhaust. The crock pot was turned off and the yarn left to cool. Then the yarn was rinsed thoroughly and hung to dry.






This was an overdye of a color that I liked at first but came to dislike over time. It was a very pale orchid and I finally decided there was no harm in dyeing it to see what happened.





The fly in the ointment, if there was one, was the microfiber. Having never dyed it before I had no idea what to expect. This, to me, is a real problem with yarn labeling. The word microfiber describes a yarn which is the result of a specific production method and which is less than 1.0 denier (the weight in grams of a 9000 meter length of the fiber). For example, the yarn in a nylon stocking maybe 10 - 15 denier and consist of 3 or 4 plys. A 15 denier strand of microfiber would be made up of somewhere around 30 filaments of microfiber. This is part of the reason microfiber is so soft. (See this article, Microfibers: Functional Beauty, for more information on microfiber.)

The problem comes in - at least for a would-be dyer - when something is labeled simply microfiber without any further clarification as to what the actual fiber content is. It will be synthetic, or at least synthetically produced (like rayon, for example) and is usually polyester or nylon, sometimes acrylic. Polyester and acrylic won't dye the way wool will - but nylon will so knowing the fiber content is critical. Some ball bands will say "Nylon microfiber" or "Acrylic microfiber" but many just say "microfiber" so dyeing such yarn is a bit of a crap shoot.






Notes: I knew going in that there was a risk involved as I didn't know what the microfiber part of the yarn actually was. I gambled that there was a pretty good chance that it was nylon which would take the dye pretty much as well as the wool and cashmere components did.

And the yarn did take the dye but the final color is much lighter than the dye bath was. The bath was a strong, deep grape color (graple, Myria called it) but the yarn is significantly lighter than that - more like a lilac than a grape :) - with occasional segues into and out of pale gray. I had thought the microfiber content was likely nylon, but I'm not sure that's the case. All the same, the yarn is interesting and certainly useable :)

A final note about the Cashmerino...

The yarn is extremely soft and while much of it had been rolled, used and frogged, it all sprang back to its original form during the dyeing so it is also quite resilient. And while the cashmere content might make you think this is too luxurious for ordinary projects, it is easily washable and so relatively easy care. But save it for things that benefit from the extreme softness or that need especial drape. Body isn't it's best quality :)

Colored by Robbyn on 03/18 at 03:41 PM
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Gypsy Rose

Materials

Approximately 5 ounces sportweight wool, 90% merino, 10% nylon (according to the label)
PAAS dye tablets: 6 red, 1 violet
White vinegar
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Gypsy Rose

Soaked the yarn in tepid water (no detergent or soap), dissolved the dye in vinegar and water, placed yarn in crock pot, poured dye bath in and set oh high. The dye took about 6 hours to exhaust and the yarn was left to cool overnight. Then it was washed, rolled in a towel and stood on to squeeze out as much poisture as possible and then hung to dry.





If you look closely, you'll see that the ball on the upper left isn't the same as the other two. The dyeing produced an almost marled effect leading me to suspect that the fiber composition of this particular ball of yarn is different from the other two (there were three balls all together) regardless of all three ball bands being the same and giving identical information. Such are the surprises to be had when diving into the bargain bin :)






Notes: The swatch was done with the solid color yarn.

The color is very similar to an early experiment, Second Hand Rose which was a cream/pale yellow lace weight alpaca. While this yarn looked like any other ordinary cream colored yarn, possibly there was a yellow dye component already in it, rather than it just being a natural color...you know...naturally :)

This yarn had an odd, almost plasticky feel when it was wet and took, relatively speaking, a lot of time to take up all the dye. It's interesting to get two very different results from a single dye lot and is, perhaps, something to remember in the future. That is, it might be something to do intentionally rather than accidentally with an array of yarns of different fiber compositions in order to get a related, but not identical, range of colors.

The yarn has wonderful body and is very springy :) It made a wonderful swatch that was as vibrant to the fingers as it was to the eye - as did its sister yarn, Ibis (same brand, slightly different style) which is currently being worked into a very bright pair of socks :)

As this was bargain bin stuff, I don't expect to run into it again and couldn't find anything about the brand (Chabotte) on line.

Colored by Robbyn on 03/09 at 01:18 PM
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