Rules for Feeding the Stash

Monday, June 29, 2015

Another Experiment


Hope you all had a marvelous weekend, my loveys! (Speaking of lovey, the US Supreme Court ruled on Friday that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional! I am so excited for this ruling, so proud of my country, and so happy for all my friends who have been and will be affected by this ruling.)

Other than that, it's been a pretty slow weekend at la casa wayward. I finished my orange tee and worked on the pattern most of Saturday, and it's been sent off for editing. I also started the first hat for my collection, and I even got a few rows done on my mum's Rocky Coast.


Remember these? These are the skeins I dyed using dandelions a while back. I was torn about what to do with them-the color wasn't as saturated as I wanted, although in some spots it really seemed to pop! Ultimately I decided I wanted more color in these skeins, so I'm over-dyeing them with turmeric. I did like the color from the dandelions, though, so I'll have to remember to use more flowers next time. Hopefully I'll get a nice, bright, saturated yellow. It's all an experiment, so we'll see how it turns out in a few days.

16 comments:

  1. ooh, that is so cool! I'm really excited to see how the turmeric overdye works out, I tried dyeing yarn for the first time last week with avocado pits, but it was too light- I either needed to simmer the dye longer, or needed more pits, or less fiber... so many variables!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's so many variables! I know that I didn't have enough dandelions in the jars the first time around, but we'll see how this comes out!

      Delete
  2. looks like you might be on the right track now!!! Looking like a nice bright color!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Neat! The yellow definitely does look awesome and bright! I haven't done any dying experiments. It's on my list of things to do, but I always wonder if I'll ever have time? Have a nice week :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I love solar dyeing because it's so hands-off. I need 10 minutes to put the jars together, and then I just leave them until I feel like rinsing the yarn out-it doesn't matter if I forget about them and leave them outside for months :)

      Delete
  4. Can't wait to see how your yarn comes out! If you don' mind me asking, who do you use for your pattern editing? I'm thinking of having my sweater pattern tech edited before test knitting, but I'm overwhelmed by all the options and have no idea what to ask for in an editor.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh my gosh, this post totally lines up with my newest latest interest! The owner of my LYS is a dyer, using natural dyes she finds here in the Yukon. I just bought a book from her called Wild Colour by Jenny Dean, and it's fantastic! The book is actually a gift for someone else, but I think I'm going to have to get another one for me. ;)

    I just looked up Turmeric in it, and it warns that yellow shades from turmeric is likely to be less fast than other yellow dyes, even when used with a mordant or in combination with other dyes. It does say that in India, it is frequently mixed with pomegranate rind, as turmeric brightens the colour and the tannin in the pomegranate rind makes the colour more permanent. Also, when the turmeric dye fades, the ocher shade from the fruit rind remains.

    Onion skins can also produce a nice yellow shade! And the book suggests using onion skins to supplement a yellow dye bath made from other plant material since the addition of onion skins brightens the final result. :)

    Ack sorry, I'm getting almost obsessive about this. lol Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha, that's okay :) I have so many links saved on natural dyeing, and I'll randomly start talking to mum about dyestuff when we're shopping for produce :) I'm hoping for a sort of "bright-but-a-little-rusty" yellowish, which is really vague, which means it should be easy to not be too disappointed. I definitely want to start saving onion skins for a batch, though-we eat a lot of onions, but I always forget to save the skins and they end up thrown in compost!

      Delete
  6. Can't wait to see how it turns out! I would love to try natural dyeing sometime - ah well, something else to add to my list of crafty things to do!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I can't recommend it enough-dyeing's not fun if you're a super control freak, but if you want to just play with messy stuff and see what happens, it can't be beat :)

      Delete
  7. hope the second dye turns out the way you want! Looks really yellow over here but I know when you take the yarn out it will not be that strong.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I'm keeping my fingers crossed-tumeric can be a little funny to work with, but it's not as much fun if it's too predictable :)

      Delete
  8. I love the yellow! It makes me think of summer, sun, wildflowers...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! Yellow is such a summer color-sun, sunflowers, dandelions :)

      Delete