Comments | serenya_loreden: Dye O Rama

serenya_loreden

Dye O Rama

May 06, 2006 08:38

In a fit of insanity I signed up for a yarn swap. Dye-O-Rama to be precise. It is a 'dye your own sock yarn' swap. I sensibly signed up for the "WTF" rather then the "I'm experienced" group, having not really done any dyeing more complicated then plopping fiber into kool aid. The irony here is that I've never crocheted a sock (though I did ( Read more... )

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Comments 7

miss_next May 6 2006, 06:57:41 UTC

Oh, that sounds like a whole lot of fun! Over here you can get a very good range of dyes made by Dylon; I don't know whether or not they will ship to the United States, but it could be worth a try. If they don't and you want to order, drop me an e-mail. I am perfectly happy for you to order them and have them delivered to my address - I will forward them on.

I'm also intrigued by the crocheted sock patterns. I think I'd like to do that for the winter; are the patterns available online?

serenya_loreden May 6 2006, 08:28:02 UTC

Amazon lists a book of sock patterns that I've wishlisted but not yet bought.

I found two on line:

http://www.graftonfibers.com/socks.htm
http://members.aol.com/Sbaycgoa/patsock.htm

The second is the one I'm trying first. Toe up struck me as giving better odds of it actually fitting, as I can try it on.

The Dylon dyes look interesting, once I get a bit more adventurous in my dyeing I'll look at that again, thanks! So far I'm sticking to food coloring dyes, as they'll work on animal proteins and are entirely kitchen safe. I'm not ready to acquire an entire set of apparatus just for dyeing just yet.

miss_next May 6 2006, 08:34:45 UTC

Thanks for that! I suspect I'm going to end up trying the first pattern - it looks simpler. As far as crochet goes, I have more imagination than actual skill. :-)

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serenya_loreden May 6 2006, 08:20:11 UTC

If you want some, just let me know what you like. That caramel/grey blend I posted is all I've made so far that is actually *usable* mind you, and the skeins are all about 40-50 yards worth, cause my plying is not so good. I'm putting together a yarn box out of my stash for Cornute, and was planning to drop a skein of that in just for her to see, I'm happy to mail you one too -- after all, I want to show off! :p

If you have a real preference in fiber types or colors I can probably find something in my fiber stash (umm, yeah, I really should never go to ebay) and if not I'm guessing I can find something elsewhere.

redmelde May 6 2006, 07:41:57 UTC

Prepare for the Wilton colors to break like mad. You might pick up another skein and split it into 4 one ounce skeins and then dye each one a color that you intend to use in your final product. The icing colors weren't designed to stay true under hot, acidic conditions, so they will split and mutate. This is fine, so long as you know what to expect.

Another option is for you to blend your colors from Kool-Aid or from the Wilton primaries. For some reason, if you blend it yourself, they tend not to split as badly.

serenya_loreden May 6 2006, 08:21:23 UTC

Thanks for the info! I figured I was going to end up making quite a few test runs trying to get something vaguely suitable for this swap. Part of the, what was I thinking! moment :o At least they gave us six weeks.

glassgirl7 May 8 2006, 18:50:14 UTC

That sounds so fun!!

My advice is get Country Classics (cheap and foolproof, very simple) and expect it to work on the first or second try. It'll work both times, but you might not get the exact color you were looking for on the first try. Any acid dye will work just as well.

And thanks for stopping by our new blog! Happy to have you!

Martha at www.whorlygig.blogspot.com, and also lj glassgirl