Saturday, September 01, 2007
the last dye day for a while
Well school starts on Tuesday so I guess my first summer off is officially over. I really enjoyed having the time to recharge and I'm feeling more relaxed than I have in years. I just have to find a way to keep up better during the year.
In an attempt to aide my sanity I did a little more dyeing. All the roving is from Knit-Knackers and the sock yarn is from Knit Picks.
This is 200grams of merino roving that is intended for the Ravelry "Spinner Central" September Spin a Long. The colour theme is the end of summer and I think I'm calling this "Last Blush". It kind of reminds me of the excitement of the first day of school with the pink and the beginning of serious studies with the brown. I tried a hot pour technique using Wiltons dye for this roving. It worked fairly well but I need a bigger pot to spread my rovings out in. I had a hard time getting the dye all the way to the bottom.This is a superwash roving that is hand dyed using Jacquard acid dye. I love the birghtness of it. I think I will try and chain ply this so I can keep it in stripes but I haven't decided yet.
Another superwash roving again with the acid dye. I can really see the difference between the Wilton's dye above and this one. They use what should be similar colours but the end result is drastically different for each. I think this one will make an awesome verigated barber poled sock thing.
This is another "new technique" attempt. I wound a skein into a much larger one but going around and around a large packing box. I then soaked it and twisted it into a traditional skein. Then the dyes were squirted into the cracks. It has resulted in various lengths of colour and a lot of white showing through. I've just started knitting this up and I love it! Detail shot below.
The last is not dyeing at all but it is the continuation of my Xmas knitting. My mom requested a cat bed for their new cat, Monty. My folks have a huge collection of white and blue plates that dominate the kitchen and the family room where this would likely go so I tried to tie it into that. It's the Kitty Pi pattern and I used two colours (and two and 1/2 balls) of Lopi. It took three runs through the washer to felt but I really like how it turned out.