Swatchless

This morning I packed up my bag of tricks and went to visit a friend and show her daughters, and niece how to use kool-aid to dye wool.  I brought along my drop spindle, and several different kinds of fiber as well.

Contents of the bag of tricks:  drop spindle, silk worm inside cocoon, two kinds of dyed roving, undyed roving, fleece (locks/carded/onion dyed), brown Shetland fleece, laceweight alpaca that I spun, sari silk, kool-aid and food colouring.

We started by guessing what this little white thing was.  (It’s a cocoon with a silk worm inside.  If you shake it, it rattles!)

What a brave girl, holding the silk worm from inside the cocoon.

Then we started to experiment with colours.  I am so impressed by the guts that these girls have, mixing colours together that I would have never tried.  They have such an adventurous spirit, and a drive to experiment.

Using microwave safe materials

Add colours

Microwave until the water in the container is clear, or almost clear.  Look at the beautiful and very different results!

I’m inspired to try some of these and other colour combinations!

creating art will most likely make a bit of a mess

The messy fingers are well worth it.  Look at the gorgeous results!

from left to right: orange/purple, green/blue, blue/orange, blue/purple, red/orange, blue/mango(darker green)

While waiting for the microwave to be free, the girls tried their hand at using the drop spindle.  They are both pretty good at it!  It takes lots of focus to keep the spindle spinning, and the fiber drafted to a reasonable thickness.  Next week we’re going to try to use my spinning wheel to spin some of their beautiful dyed roving.

How to use a drop spindle:

-Attach a leader cord (string) to the spindle, and wind it around, and through the cup hook at the top.

-Hold the string, and twist the spindle in your fingers to get it twirling in a counter clockwise direction (my spindle has sheep on it, so we made the sheep go backwards)

-While the spindle is twisting, attach some pre-drafted (pulled until it is thinner) roving to the string.

-When the twist enters the roving, it makes it strong, and stick together more.

-Pinch the roving with one hand to keep the twist from moving up too fast.  Draft more roving with the other hand.

-Release your pinch, and the twist will move up the roving again.

-When the spindle slows, give it a spin with your hand.

-When the spindle touches the ground, wind the string onto the stick of the spindle, through the hook, and start again.

Thanks for the fun morning girls!  You inspire me.

I have been quite creative today, but that creativity will remain secret since some projects will be holiday gifts, and I don’t want to spoil any surprises.

In the mean time, I’ll show some creativity of another year when I learned how to make self striping yarn. That’s the yarn that became popular about 5 years ago that makes stripes and patterns without the knitter changing colours, or paying attention to a chart.

It was something I had always wondered about….how could they design sock wool so that it would make such regular stripes, and patterns. I did a little internet research, and found out how it is done!

WARNING: This project takes ALL day, your ENTIRE apartment, and gets quite messy. It is a lot of fun though.

To start with, you need yarn with a significant wool content (it accepts kool-aid/natural dyes better). If you are dyeing with chemical dyes, check to see what fibers they will work best with. I chose to use all my freezer burned frozen fruit, and other things I could find in my kitchen. Some substances work better than others. Think of what leaves a nasty stain on clothes, and it will probably be a good dye.

Step 1: Gather materials

Strawberries, Blueberries, Raspberries, Cranberries, Blackberries, Red Cabbage, Onion, Red Onion, Curry, Green Tea, Black Tea, and 100% wool from Brigs and Little (1 ply)

Step 2: Make a LARGE skein of yarn. This will be larger than any other skein imaginable. I used my entire apartment!

It took a long time to wrap yarn around all of the chairs I own, and then to tie extra strings around the skein in many places to keep it from getting tangled.

Step 3: Unhook the large skein (tied in many places so it’s not tangled), and soak it in water with vinegar and alum and cream of tartar (which makes the wool accept the dye better–I’m still not exactly sure why). Gather several mason jars, and make a water bath in a pot on the stove. The salt is to set the colour in the end.

Step 4: Take a 1-2 meter section of the very large skein, and put it in a mason jar with water and the dye. Turn the stove on. Make sure to keep an eye on the water level in the pot. don’t let it boil dry. Each 1-2 meter section will represent a stripe of color in the finished garment (socks in this case).

Step 5: It gets a bit messy dealing with the wool that is being dyed, and the wool that has been dyed, since it is all in one very large skein. Make sure the wool doesn’t burn on the stove element. Make sure that there is always water in the pot. Make sure you have some bleach to clean your stove and counter when you are done!

Keep going until all portions of the wool are dyed.

Step 6: Rinse the skein in cool salt water (to set the colour)

Step 7: Hang the yarn to dry.

This wool was knit up into socks, but I didn’t get a good picture before they ended up in the wash. It is interesting to me how they change colour when washed with laundry detergent. I think it has something to do with the pH, and the universal indicator properties of some of these fruit pigments. The colours are now more on the brown/yellow side.

I did a similar project with kool-aid, and some handspun white yarn as well.

Hanging to dry in the bathroom.

wound into a skein

If you plan it properly and start knitting the sock at the same point in the colour sequence, you’ll get a matched pair (which is important to some people!)

after two years of wear, the colours have faded a little.

I wish you luck if you try this! Let me know how it turns out.

Today is a cold day.  It looked like there could have been snow in the clouds that were building up on the horizon this afternoon.  Snow is in the forecast for Thursday…so bring on the wool!  I’ve been inspired today to get back to spinning….and what’s more fun than spinning brightly coloured roving??

I bought my roving from Paradise Fibers and it is lovely!  I’m not sure what I will make with the finished yarn.  I’m not sure if I will make it 2 ply or 3 ply or leave it as singles.  I’m not sure if I will make sock yarn, or bulky yarn.  If I just sit down and spin without thinking, I generally produce a 2 ply sock yarn, or 3 ply mitten yarn….but that decision is not to be made tonight.  The decision of the evening is what flavour yarn will I make…..

The choices are so delicious!  The colours so vibrant!  The smell so sweet!

I made a trip to the grocery store this evening to pick up supplies….several packages of Kool Aid.  I think that tonight’s flavour will be orange, perhaps augmented with yellow and red food colouring.  This is my Art Every Day Month project for November 3, and a sure way to warm up my freezing cold hands!

Steps for dying wool with Kool-Aid

Step 1:  determine the quantity of roving to dye.  If you have a specific project in mind, determine how many grams of wool you will need.  Always dye more than you think you will need because this process produces unique roving which cannot be repeated if you run out.

Step 2:  put the roving in a microwave safe container and add water until the roving is saturated and submerged.  Use warm water, it’s way nicer on the hands!

saturated, submerged rovings

Step 3:  add colouring to the water.  This method will result in a more or less random distribution of colour.  Note:  if you do not use Kool-Aid, but choose to use food colouring instead, you need to add vinegar to set the dye.  Kool-Aid is already acidic, so you do not need to add vinegar if that is what you are using.

dye

orange kool-aid, red food colouring, yellow food colouring, water, vinegar

Step 4:  microwave on high for 2 minutes

microwave

Step 5:  check the colour

Repeat steps 4 and 5 until the water in the container is clear.  The dye will have been picked up by the wool fiber.  Add more colour if you desire a more saturated hue.  The ratio of food colouring to fiber being dyed is what is important; the quantity of water used does not affect the resulting colour saturation.

water is clear

Step 6:  Rinse the roving in warm water to remove excess dye

rinsed roving

Step 7:  Hang the roving to dry (outside in the sunshine, inside near a heater)

drying

I’m very excited about the colours of this roving.  It reminds me of rainbow sherbet!  I hope it is dry so I can start spinning it tomorrow afternoon.  I think this roving wants to become a toque, or mittens.  Stay tuned to see the progress!