Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Études In Sea Green


My further experiments with wool dyeing. Last month I ordered 500 g of Italian bobbin merino extra-fine. A friend asked me to dye some yarn for her and as I wanted to experiment with dip dyeing, I made for her 200 g of dip dyed turquoise merino.


200 g is the optimal quantity I can dye in my designated pot. I wound the yarn in a long skein, prepared the hot dye mix of blue and a touch of yellow in a big plastic bottle and gradually dipped the yarn in the dye. Then, after most of the dye was in the yarn, I fixed the dye in hot water with added salt and vinegar for 1 hour and let it cool for another hour.


The result is pleasing, the yarn is very soft, I hope she would knit something nice out of it.


A few days later I wound the remaining 300 g into two skeins of 150 g each and dyed them, using my usual distributed method, with the turquoise mixture and pure blue. However I must have failed to stir well the turquoise mixture, as the second skein turned our much greener than the first one.


As I intended to alternate skeins anyway, I hope this wouldn't be much of a problem.



I intend to knit a cardigan or a sweater out of it in garter stitch, I made a small sample and I like it. So far I've narrowed my choice to Ysolda Teague's Vine Yoke Cardigan, which I've already knit in cotton/acrylic and love, and Hanako -  simple but pleasing free pattern on Ravelry by a designer, who's work I'm currently admiring - Tian Foley.


4 comments:

  1. Oh, love the gradient! Such a great result!

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  2. This came out neat. How clever you are.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Stefanie, I really love playing with dyes :)

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