Tag Archives: variegated

More Socks

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It seems like I’ve been on a sock kick (ha!) since the baby was born.  There’s something about a small, simple project that you’ve done a million times that’s very comforting.  It’s something I can pick up whenever I get a minute or two, but can then put down again when the little guy starts crying.  I’ve made so many socks over the years, that I could probably do them in my sleep.  (Which sometimes happens these days.)

Plus, it’s a great excuse to play with some beautiful, fancy yarn.  Like this:(Country Yarns Artistry, a hand-dyed super-dense sock yarn that I picked up at last fall’s Vogue Knitting Live.)

It’s even prettier in real life- all blues and greens and purples, vibrant and saturated.  (I can’t for the life of me figure out how to photograph intense blue yarn.  For some reason my camera always washes it out and makes it look all one-note.  I even tried Photoshop to correct the color, but it still doesn’t look great.  If anyone knows how to fix this, I’d love to hear it!)

Now, I love variegated yarn… when its in a skein or balled up, ready for knitting.  I visit a yarn store or a knitting expo, and I almost invariably leave with a skein or two of something hand-painted or dyed.  It’s irresistible!  But, then I get it home and start knitting and go “Eh.  It’s not as pretty as I thought it would be.” (I make a point of only sock yarn in variegated colorways these days.  It’s no big deal if the colors are a little bit brighter/sillier/tackier than I would normally wear.  )

But, this time I am pleasantly surprised.  Somehow, the pooling on this sock worked out really well!  It’s turned into a pretty blue-and-purple spiral, zooming down the broken seed stitch leg.Unfortunately, the heel has messed up the perfect spiral pattern.  Dang.

Hopefully the spiral will come back as I make my way further down the foot.  (And hopefully I can get the other sock to match!)  Fingers crossed!

Have you ever been surprised with how a new yarn works up?

Dying With Food Coloring, Part 3

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Now let’s really have some fun!  Variegated yarn is my favorite to make… it’s sort of like finger-painting, or tie dying.  But with yarn.  Fabulous!

 

Start out by soaking your yarn in some nice warm water (like usual).  When it’s thoroughly soaked, get out a big baking dish and line it with a piece of plastic wrap (mine is pink, because it’s left over from Christmas, when, apparently, you can buy pink plastic wrap).  Then, arrange your yarn neatly in the dish, so that it’s all nicely laid out.

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Set your yarn aside for a couple minutes while you put together your materials for your dye.  This is going to be a little different than how we’ve done it before, so it helps to have everything ready.

Here’s what you need to get out:

-A glass measuring cup with a spout.  If you don’t have one, that’s OK.  You can use a mug or something else heat-proof, but having a spout keeps everything neat.

-A bottle of vinegar

-Food coloring of your choice

-A spoon or butter knife for mixing

-A kettle (or pot) of boiling water (the boiling part is important)

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Ready to start?  You’ll have to work kind of fast, so you might want to read over the instructions before you begin.

Mix your dye.  The dye needs to be much more concentrated than the dye we used before, since we’re hardly using any water.  Here’s what I used (more or less.  You know me, I like to eyeball my measurements):

-1/2 cup of boiling water

-1/2-1 tsp of vinegar

-Food coloring to make the shade I want.  For this colorway, I probably used about a 1/4 teaspoon of each color… more or less.

Mix it together with your spoon.  If you’re using the gel food coloring, try to get rid of any lumps or chunks (but it’s not the end of the world if you miss some).

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While the dye is still super hot, dribble it artistically over your yarn.  (You want to move fast, so that the residual heat from the boiling water sets the color right away.  If you wait for the dye to cool, you’ll end up with muddier, mixed up colors.  Of course, if you want to go for a mushy, water-color look, then feel free to experiment.)  When you dye a section of the yarn, try to dye all the strands in the bundle.  This way your whole skein will end up with more or less the same color pattern.  But, again, feel free to experiment.

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Add your other colors one by one:OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And keep going until you like how the yarn looks (or until you run out of white spaces… whichever comes first):

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So, assuming you did everything right, most of the dye has already been taken up by the yarn.  But, as you can see above, some dye might still be hanging around in the liquid.  We can’t have that.  So, we’ll use the microwave to add a little more heat and finally set the colors.   Bundle the plastic wrap around the yarn, making a fiber-arts burrito:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERATransfer your burrito to a microwave-safe plate or bowl.  Pop the whole thing in the microwave, and zap it for 1 minute at a time.  Every time you pull it out of the microwave, let it sit for a minute or two, then check to see if the water has turned clear.  Once it has, rinse out the yarn with warm water, and hang it up to dry.

Fun, right?

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