I'm Dyeing

Yes, I'm a little more mobile now--I even went in to work yesterday! Gasp! Of course, T made me sit down most of the time...

He had a great time telling everyone how I strained the tendon in my knee: He apparently talked back to me and I got mad and kicked at him. But I missed him and kicked a tree instead. And my kick was so powerful that not only did it strain my tendon, but it broke the tree in half. The disturbing part of this story was that every single person believed him right up until the part where I broke the tree in half with one kick.

But I am off again tonight (it's actually my scheduled day to do the behind-the-scenes work on the marketing materials, so I'm working, just not in the store) so I thought I'd take an hour or so and try my hand at dyeing some wool.

You remember this wool, right? It's the wool I unraveled from a Goodwill sweater. Actually, this is only about 1/4 of the wool I unraveled, so I might do some more hand-dyed yarn, depending on how this hank turns out.

Here it is, in the glass bowl, soaked with water/vinegar. It kind of looks like a brain, doesn't it?

I decided to use Easter Egg dyes, since I've read a whole lot on line about using Easter Egg dyes to dye yarn. Plus, these were, like, 40 cents each after Easter. I had R pick me up some when he and Bre went to Michael's last week. There are five tablets and five liquids in the box. I decided to use the tablets, since that's what most of the online tutorials I've read use.

The thing is, the only recognizable tablets out of this box are yellow and green. A couple looked red and one looked blue. I didn't want to get some accidental crap-colored yarn.

So, I used one of the red ones first. It turned out to be blue. Then I used the one that was definitely blue. It turned out to be purple. I dropped the other red one into the cup, hoping it would be red. And it was. So, my color palate is blue, red, and purple. Which is fine with me. I dumped it on the yarn in what I hoped would be an artistic manner.

Now it really looks like a brain! Ha!

Braaaaains!

Here's a tip: Don't use your fingers to poke the yarn down into the color. Seems like that would be something a person might not have to be told.

For the next step, you're supposed to cover the dish with plastic wrap. But, I don't know if I've ever told you this, plastic wrap and I don't seem to get along. (Now you know my dirty little secret.)

Tenth time's a charm.

And the whole shmear goes into the microwave.

As I took this picture, I got a sudden rush of irrational fear. What if the iPhone's radio waves somehow interacted with the microwave's... uh... microwaves and I ended up mutated into some form of superhero?

Don't be shocked. We all know I'm becoming an anger-driven, destructive beast when I mutate.

And here it is, dyed and rinsed and hanging up to dry. Not bad for my first time. I do see some issues here that are not necessarily According to Hoyle. (Or, According to Martha, as it were.) For one thing, most of the tutorials used about 100g of yarn. I'm guessing this hank is about twice that. But, I may have overcompensated by adding too much vinegar/water, since it did pool quite a bit on the bottom. Even so, there are some white spaces that didn't get any color, or didn't get enough because that purple dye is very weak.

This picture does not really do the color justice. All these colors are much brighter, especially the blue. My bathroom is just really dark, I guess.

Still, I like the way this yarn looks. I think it will look even better knitted up. I'm thinking of doing a cowl and boot cuffs with it. Not that I can think about wearing boots right now, with my janked up knee, but...

Next time, I think I'm going to try a smaller hank and see how that works. After all, I got the sweater for a dollar and the dyes for 40 cents. I think I can afford to experiment.