The Dye Pot

A Bubble off Plum

This yarn is the result of purchasing a thrift shop sweater for $1, taking the seams out and frogging the sweater. It seemed worth the work as the yarn is (according to the garment's label) 70% Lambswool, 20% Angora and 10% Nylon. It is also very thick - 7 wraps per inch which puts it, I think, into the very bulky or chunky category. It was originally a very pale blue/grey/green color - as below.





This is intended pretty much for Dulaan knitting, being so thick, soft and warm, and I thought I could enliven it a bit by over dyeing it. This was the result of the first batch - about 6 oz.

Materials

Approximately 6 ounces of chunky wool/angora/nylon (see above for proportions).
5 packets grape Kool-aid
1 packet watermelon-cherry Kool-aid
Approximately 1/8 tsp Wilton's icing dye, Sky Blue
White vinegar
Water

Method

Crock-pot

Colorfast?

Yes (some blue bled out in the post dyeing wash but the yarn eventually rinsed clear)

Color name

A Bubble off Plum





When the yarn was wet, the color was fairly pronounced and while I wasn't trying for a variegated yarn, it looked like that was what I was going to get :) In the pot, the colors looked like summer plums - the big red/purple ones and the little dusty blue ones. It appeared much lighter when dry - hence the name :)





Process

The process was pretty standard for this except that I pre-washed the yarn - not something I often do. The only other thing I did differently was to add the yarn to the dye bath rather than pouring the dye bath over the yarn. Otherwise it was business as usual: soak/wash the yarn, mix the dye, put the dye bath in the crock pot, add the yarn (and 6 oz of chunky yarn really fills a 5 qt crock pot!), stir, cover and turn the crock pot to high.

When the color was exhausted, the pot was turned off, the yarn left to cool and the yarn was washed and rinsed (many, many times to wash out the residual blue) and then rolled in a towel and hung to dry.






Notes:

An odd thing happened during the dye process. I wouldn't call it fulling (Or felting) exactly because the yarn didn't stick to itself in the hank and unwound as easily as it had frogged. But the plies of the yarn itself somehow became...erm...less individual. Before the yarn was dyed, I could have separated the plies - and did - to see how many there were and what the consistency of the yarn was. Afterwards, it was as though all the plies had become one piece. I had not taken any particular care with the yarn as the label had indicated that it was washable and the sweater had clearly been washed several times. However, the yarn came through nicely, other than being somewhat more solid when it came out than when it went in! Even beforehand, it was a dense rather than a lofty yarn.

It is lovely, soft stuff to knit with - the feel is just heavenly. In fact, the reason there isn't a picture of the yarn in the hank is because I couldn't wait to wind it and start knitting with it. I'd prefer the color to be a bit more intense, but I have an idea of how to proceed towards that end - and I've got three more big hanks of this stuff hanging in my closet. Looks like I've got three scalps worth of pale green dreadlocks in there!

Posted by Robbyn on 01/01 at 10:20 PM