Dyeing to show you

Wow. That was a big weekend. Apart from the huge family celebration for our nephew's First Holy Communion and Confirmation, I had a really really big Saturday, dyeing several skeins of cotton yarn that my Mum found at the charity shop she volunteers at.

To refresh everyone's memories, here's what the yarn looked like pre-dyeing:It's something I've never seen or heard of before, called Cleckheaton 'Panama' (it's DK weight), and it's really very soft and has a lovely sheen to it.

I unwound and washed each ball of cotton, then painstakingly tied it all end-to-end and made possibly the world's longest skein of yarn. No kidding - I stretched it around the backs of two chairs placed about six metres away from each other at opposite ends of the room!

I then prepared and placed the dyes in a circle so that if colours bled into each other, they'd complement each other, and arranged roughly the same amount of cotton in each dye bucket:Sadly, I made the mistake of believing my washing machine when it said it had a 'delicate' cycle... I was up till 1:45am unwinding this mess!But, it was worth it. I love love love those beautiful bright sari-type colours! I have plans for a little summer dress/pinafore for Lola-Frog with this, and I hope that the stripes it knits into (the colours are in approximate chunks of just over a metre each) don't look too clowny...I also had four and a bit skeins of a four-ply knit and crochet cotton, called Patons 'Gem' - again, never seen or heard of it before!

I really couldn't be stuffed unwinding and skeining this stuff, so on a whim, I soaked each ball and squeezed the water out, then dropped them into dye buckets...

They looked quite dark when they came out,but once the excess dye was squeezed out and the cotton was rinsed and washed, the colours had a much more pastel quality to them, with a lovely toned difference as the balls were unwound. Darker on the outside, fading to paler yarn from the inside. I'm not sure if this faded look was a result of not washing the yarn before dyeing, or if it's just the way the yarn is, due to commercial processing, but I still like it. It's a nice contrast to the 8-ply bright rainbow colours...I love using my ball winder and swift! I got halfway through winding this one:(I love how dropping this ball into the red dye resulted in a kind of peachy-orange colour!) when I realised I'd have to pull from the outside if I wanted to use the darker cotton first.

So, a quick unwind and rewind later...
So (she said, feeling quite pleased with herself!) there are almost all the results of my dye escapades. I say almost, cause I also bunged in a few tied-up shirts and baby onesies into the dye buckets. I love to tie-dye. I love the unpredictability of it, and the unusual results you can get. There's something terribly exciting about undoing a tie-dyed article from the washing machine to discover how it went! I'll take some photos and add them tomorrow.

Dyeing for a change

A few weeks ago, I posted about an acquired stash of six 50 gram balls of cotton that Mum had sourced for me from the op shop she volunteers at. It's called 'Panama' by Cleckheaton (something I've never seen or heard of, before or since!) and is the most basic, icy-white colour.

I've decided white is boring. It all needs a good wash anyway, so I've unwound it all and prepared it to be skeined (hurrah for my 'All-Powerful' swift!), washed and then dyed. I want to try handpainting this cotton, to try to get repeating stripes, so I can knit it into a couple of little pinafore-type dresses for Little One. I just hope I can figure out how to do it properly and right the first time - I don't have any extra to fall back on!I'm going to use Dylon cold water dye, which I have used to dye cotton before (tie dye, but successful dyeing nonetheless), so I know it works - one remaining question is: Dylon cold water dyes are usually used by submersing the item to be dyed in a pot of the colour, rather than painting it on sections and wrapping in plastic, which is how you see most handpainted yarns done (they are then heated up, either in a microwave or steamed in hot water)... can I do this with my cold water dye??

Maybe to play it safe, I could arrange the yarn to 'flow' into and out of several containers, each with a measure of dye... nicolana111 (on Ravelry) has pictures of something similar that she did to make her own self-striping sock yarn (project name is 'Hand Dyed Self Striping').

In the meantime, I have this entry in my list of things to get done this week:
"Knit on the Clapotis without planning new projects"

Here is the Clapotis as it stand right now;(don't you just love my DIY stitch markers there?)

... and here is the yarn I bought on Monday (Cleckheaton Country Prints 8 ply) to start a Baby Surprise Jacket for Little One.
That's a big FAIL there for me!