Take one sheep; stick in pot; add color
So in addition to cutting off my hair and knitting a lot this weekend, I also spent some of Saturday playing in the kitchen with wool and dye. I had a couple of skeins of white handspun merino, plus another big ball of white wool roving, so I decided to go that extra few feet down the rabbit hole and start experimenting with color.
For the most part, I opted to use Wilton's cake coloring gels, as they come in lots of pretty colors, there are plenty of online tutorials on how to dye yarn with them, and I could do it in my kitchen in my cooking pots without poisoning myself. I did do a small experiment with some Sennelier silk dyes leftover from the first ill-fated attempt to make pysanky at a grove meeting a year and a half ago; these are water-based liquid dyes for hand-painting silk, and are supposed to be heat-set with an iron. They're pretty old, and I wasn't sure how well they'd work on wool, but I had a small skein of handspun I was willing to experiment on.
This little skein is about 23 yards. It's actually from the same batch of spinning as the bigger 2-ply skein below, but this was the earliest section of yarn on the spindle, and was overall a lot bulkier, so I decided not to ply it and just cut it off and left it as a single.
Undyed:
I handpainted it with a blend of two colors, deep green and a bright blueish red. I added just a little bit of red to the green, which gave me a nice dark teal/pine color; I diluted this with some water and painted about 2/3 of the hank with it. I then tried adding a little more red to the green, until I got a deep purple. Diluted that as well and painted the rest of the hank with it. I think I left a little white space between the edges of the two different colors. I wrapped it up in plastic wrap, put it in a plastic container, and microwaved it to set the heat (2 minutes on high, 2 minutes resting, 2 minutes on high, 2 minutes resting.) I didn't get a very good seal with my plastic wrap, which leaked so that a bunch of the dye was sitting in the bottom of the container, separated from the yarn, so that was sort of frustrating. I think that's why the yarn isn't very saturated with color. Still, I like the washed-out look of it, and it looks like the sky before a big thunderstorm.
...................
I 2-plied the rest of the white merino on my older drop spindle. It varies thick and thin, because my spinning wasn't that even, but I think it averages out to about a worsted or possibly even DK weight. There's about 160 yards, which feels like a lot to me, even though I know that the best I'll get out of that yardage would be a scarf. Anyway. I thought it was kinda wonky looking until I set the twist and skeined it, at which point it finally started to look like Real Yarn.
Wasn't it pretty? I was tempted to just leave it au naturel, except honestly when would I ever make something white?
So I decided to try hand-painting it with Wilton's. I picked Delphinium, Juniper, and Copper, which I was hoping would give me something like this combo, only with more of a copper/peach than a yellow. I followed the Knitty tutorial on hand-painting, and laid out and painted my yarn thus:
(Clearly I made my colors a lot more concentrated than in the inspiration photo I linked to above, but I didn't know that. Notice that something funky is already going on with the blue.)
I microwaved it rather than baking it, because I was paranoid about melting plastic wrap onto my yarn. I did better with wrapping the plastic wrap, but there was still a small leak of some of the green and blue dye into the bottom of the casserole dish, away from the yarn. I think this got a total of 6 minutes of microwave time, using the 2-on-2-off method.
Once it had cooled, I rinsed it (hardly any color bleed in the water, good) and hung it up to dry. I could tell that the green and the blue had both separated (meaning that yarn had taken up the red tones at a different pace than the blue tones), but the saturation was pretty spectacular, so I wasn't too worried.
Once it dried, though, the colors lightened a bit, and I found that I had a skein of what appeared to be a crazed parrot painted by someone on psychedelic drugs. The copper lightened up to almost a pink in places, but that was okay. The juniper had split into a grass green and a burgundy, but that was also okay. I liked the combo of copper and split-juniper quite a bit. The delphinium, however... what was supposed to be a pale periwinkle split into screamingly bright turquoise and grape. Now, they're pretty enough, I suppose, but they're just not the tones I wanted at all. The green and copper are bright, but they have a warm earthiness that works for me. The turquoise/purple pushes that into neon tropical for me, and I really can't stand it.
(The other, prettier, side:)
So I think I might try overdying just that one section, either with a diluted solution of the Juniper, or possibly with some Burgundy. Something to tone it down and warm it up. I'll have to do some tests first, so that I don't completely ruin my yarn.
I got ambitious and decided to try dyeing some roving as well. I went for kettle dyeing with this, since the handpainting wasn't going so well, and I wanted a more blended color combo anyway. While I feel pretty confident of my abilities to handle wool yarn in hot water without accidentally felting it, I wasn't so sure about how to handle the roving. So, after wrapping it into a spiral, I plopped it into a wire colander, and used that to lower it into the presoak water and the dye bath. That way, when it was time to take it out, I just had to pick up the colander, and the water would drain, without squeezing or breaking the roving. It worked fabulously. I used the Wilton's again-- more Copper (love that color) and a mixture of Juniper and Lemon Yellow. I also mixed up a weak blend of Black and Brown, hoping to get a smokey grey, but on my test paper it was just splitting into burgundy and green. I did pour some of it in on top of the copper and green, but it either didn't take or split into the exact same colors I was already dyeing, because I really can't see any evidence of it. (Well, it may have darkened the Copper to more of a rosy color, but I'm not sure.)
In the kettle. Lovely and autumnal, no?
From the top, it looked like it mostly just took the copper and not much of the green. There was still a bit of green in the dye water after an hour of simmering, but I got impatient and took it off the heat anyway. However, after cooling and draining the roving, I found that the copper had mostly sat on top, and the green had soaked into the bottom. Surprise! I really loved how this turned out. It almost perfectly matches the local apples that I bought at Bloomingfoods the other day. I can't wait to spin it up.
The top:
And the bottom:
I still had a bit of that ill-fated attempt at grey mixed up, and I was curious to see what it would do on its own. I dug out an oddball remnant of white Lamb's Pride Bulky (wool & mohair) from my stash, pre-soaked it, plonked it into a small dish with the dye and some more water, and microwaved it. I think I gave this about 6 minutes of heating time as well.
It came out dark burgundy with sort of iridescent-looking undertones of green. Pretty. Not remotely grey. Here it is, next to the Stormy Weather yarn:
For the most part, I opted to use Wilton's cake coloring gels, as they come in lots of pretty colors, there are plenty of online tutorials on how to dye yarn with them, and I could do it in my kitchen in my cooking pots without poisoning myself. I did do a small experiment with some Sennelier silk dyes leftover from the first ill-fated attempt to make pysanky at a grove meeting a year and a half ago; these are water-based liquid dyes for hand-painting silk, and are supposed to be heat-set with an iron. They're pretty old, and I wasn't sure how well they'd work on wool, but I had a small skein of handspun I was willing to experiment on.
This little skein is about 23 yards. It's actually from the same batch of spinning as the bigger 2-ply skein below, but this was the earliest section of yarn on the spindle, and was overall a lot bulkier, so I decided not to ply it and just cut it off and left it as a single.
Undyed:
I handpainted it with a blend of two colors, deep green and a bright blueish red. I added just a little bit of red to the green, which gave me a nice dark teal/pine color; I diluted this with some water and painted about 2/3 of the hank with it. I then tried adding a little more red to the green, until I got a deep purple. Diluted that as well and painted the rest of the hank with it. I think I left a little white space between the edges of the two different colors. I wrapped it up in plastic wrap, put it in a plastic container, and microwaved it to set the heat (2 minutes on high, 2 minutes resting, 2 minutes on high, 2 minutes resting.) I didn't get a very good seal with my plastic wrap, which leaked so that a bunch of the dye was sitting in the bottom of the container, separated from the yarn, so that was sort of frustrating. I think that's why the yarn isn't very saturated with color. Still, I like the washed-out look of it, and it looks like the sky before a big thunderstorm.
...................
I 2-plied the rest of the white merino on my older drop spindle. It varies thick and thin, because my spinning wasn't that even, but I think it averages out to about a worsted or possibly even DK weight. There's about 160 yards, which feels like a lot to me, even though I know that the best I'll get out of that yardage would be a scarf. Anyway. I thought it was kinda wonky looking until I set the twist and skeined it, at which point it finally started to look like Real Yarn.
Wasn't it pretty? I was tempted to just leave it au naturel, except honestly when would I ever make something white?
So I decided to try hand-painting it with Wilton's. I picked Delphinium, Juniper, and Copper, which I was hoping would give me something like this combo, only with more of a copper/peach than a yellow. I followed the Knitty tutorial on hand-painting, and laid out and painted my yarn thus:
(Clearly I made my colors a lot more concentrated than in the inspiration photo I linked to above, but I didn't know that. Notice that something funky is already going on with the blue.)
I microwaved it rather than baking it, because I was paranoid about melting plastic wrap onto my yarn. I did better with wrapping the plastic wrap, but there was still a small leak of some of the green and blue dye into the bottom of the casserole dish, away from the yarn. I think this got a total of 6 minutes of microwave time, using the 2-on-2-off method.
Once it had cooled, I rinsed it (hardly any color bleed in the water, good) and hung it up to dry. I could tell that the green and the blue had both separated (meaning that yarn had taken up the red tones at a different pace than the blue tones), but the saturation was pretty spectacular, so I wasn't too worried.
Once it dried, though, the colors lightened a bit, and I found that I had a skein of what appeared to be a crazed parrot painted by someone on psychedelic drugs. The copper lightened up to almost a pink in places, but that was okay. The juniper had split into a grass green and a burgundy, but that was also okay. I liked the combo of copper and split-juniper quite a bit. The delphinium, however... what was supposed to be a pale periwinkle split into screamingly bright turquoise and grape. Now, they're pretty enough, I suppose, but they're just not the tones I wanted at all. The green and copper are bright, but they have a warm earthiness that works for me. The turquoise/purple pushes that into neon tropical for me, and I really can't stand it.
(The other, prettier, side:)
So I think I might try overdying just that one section, either with a diluted solution of the Juniper, or possibly with some Burgundy. Something to tone it down and warm it up. I'll have to do some tests first, so that I don't completely ruin my yarn.
I got ambitious and decided to try dyeing some roving as well. I went for kettle dyeing with this, since the handpainting wasn't going so well, and I wanted a more blended color combo anyway. While I feel pretty confident of my abilities to handle wool yarn in hot water without accidentally felting it, I wasn't so sure about how to handle the roving. So, after wrapping it into a spiral, I plopped it into a wire colander, and used that to lower it into the presoak water and the dye bath. That way, when it was time to take it out, I just had to pick up the colander, and the water would drain, without squeezing or breaking the roving. It worked fabulously. I used the Wilton's again-- more Copper (love that color) and a mixture of Juniper and Lemon Yellow. I also mixed up a weak blend of Black and Brown, hoping to get a smokey grey, but on my test paper it was just splitting into burgundy and green. I did pour some of it in on top of the copper and green, but it either didn't take or split into the exact same colors I was already dyeing, because I really can't see any evidence of it. (Well, it may have darkened the Copper to more of a rosy color, but I'm not sure.)
In the kettle. Lovely and autumnal, no?
From the top, it looked like it mostly just took the copper and not much of the green. There was still a bit of green in the dye water after an hour of simmering, but I got impatient and took it off the heat anyway. However, after cooling and draining the roving, I found that the copper had mostly sat on top, and the green had soaked into the bottom. Surprise! I really loved how this turned out. It almost perfectly matches the local apples that I bought at Bloomingfoods the other day. I can't wait to spin it up.
The top:
And the bottom:
I still had a bit of that ill-fated attempt at grey mixed up, and I was curious to see what it would do on its own. I dug out an oddball remnant of white Lamb's Pride Bulky (wool & mohair) from my stash, pre-soaked it, plonked it into a small dish with the dye and some more water, and microwaved it. I think I gave this about 6 minutes of heating time as well.
It came out dark burgundy with sort of iridescent-looking undertones of green. Pretty. Not remotely grey. Here it is, next to the Stormy Weather yarn: