Archive for the ‘To Dye For’ Category

My first sock!

Saturday, November 27th, 2010

Yesterday went by in a trance of sock-weight yarn. I finished my first sock ever, a little sockette, and was almost done with the other sock by the end of the day. It’s all i did, selecting “next episode” of the streaming Highlander over and over while Christine was at her mandolin lesson and at her tutoring. Too late, as Christine was just finishing up her warm up and tuning to leave, did i realize i could have gone with her to her lesson. At that point, i didn’t realize i was going to crochet all day.

My First Sock

I weighed my sockette and the remaining yarn and found i will get *almost* a pair out of the light fingering weight ball (230 yards/50 grams/1.76 ounces = 130 ypo). I have two skeins of this inherited yarn. I can stretch the self striping yarn if i do heels and toes out of some solid sock-weight yarn.

One of the lessons about yarn craft that surprised me is the design importance of the weight and behavior of the yarn itself. It’s obvious once you think about it, but the incredible variation in material still surprises me. Each step introduces a different behavior: the source fiber, the spinning, the plying. It drives me mildly nuts that there isn’t a very standardized yarn description. The fiber content is usually pretty clear. The weight of the yarn can be deduced, the ply is some times reported. There is a metric, wraps per inch, that would give the sense of bulk of the yarn, but that’s rarely reported. One could have a loosely spun and tightly spun yarn which has the same yardage per ounce.

Then there are often a knitters gauge reported (n stitches per some swatch size on some sort of needle) which is maddening: i don’t knit, and even if i did, stitch per inch can be so variable. I suppose this is an attempt to get at wpi — but why not just report wpi?

Why do i care? Well, i’d like to buy some heel and toe yarn, now that i’ve determined i can do this sock thing. Heel and toe yarn could be neutral, and the pretty pretty hand dyed sock yarns make the visible bits. So i begin shopping: it turns out the yarn i have is a little lighter than your average sock weight (130 yards per oz compared to 106 yards per oz). EBay has destashed sock yarn available: what’s a fair price?

Well, first i have to find what i’d be likely to buy at retail. It seems Knit Picks carries a light fingering weight at roughly $2 per oz in a good blend.

A regular sockweight yarn, undyed, at Dharma would be $2.43/oz.

I’m tempted by a silk noil sock yarn at Dharma because i could dye it myself with the fiber reactive dyes i like. It would be unsuitable, i believe, for heels and toes. Noil is a short fiber, and i suspect it would wear poorly on the heels.

I did read about a luxury sock yarn Lang Jawoll, that comes with “a bonus spool of matching reinforcement yarn to carry along when knitting the toes & heels, the parts that get the most wear.” I wonder about adding plain nylon threads to carry along in toes and heels. It seems like a straightforward solution.

What i’d like to figure out is how to cover the bottom of the sock with something like hemp to make slippers with a rugged base but soft and pretty top. I suppose i could just sew a hemp sole to a sock. The silk noil yarn could make the top and foot facing sole. And there’s the fun of uppers for the mohops (although i’ve bought silk ribbon from Dharma with the intention of using that for mohop uppers.
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To Dye For 2010: Back on the wagon

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

I am clearly wanting to “do it right” this year, compared to last year’s impulsive dive into dying. I’m not sure why, but i’ve put more deliberation into this than…. Well, i’m not sure what, when measuring duration of planning to duration of actual work. Beam time on the Michigan State cyclotron is about the only thing that comes to mind.

I’m calculating how much dye i need. I’m deploying all the blanks into target containers. I’ve documented the techniques i want to try. Am i killing all sense of serendipity, spontaneity? Am i scared of the dye?

Not sure. Tomorrow morning will tell!

…wait…

So i tried making the dyes just at dusk, and i must say, i feel like i am missing dye. I seemed to just barely have 3 tbsp of purple dye, and that’s what i put in the 2c container
for the purple; i only made one red cup and one brown cup. I feel like i must have a unit wrong somewhere, but all the checking i’ve validates the concentration recipe.

Plans — from before the dye limits were observed — after the cut. (more…)

Dye kit (and a day’s adventures)

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

This weekend i pulled out my kit to see what was needed (trays for tray dying) and what i had misplaced. I don’t think i’ve technically misplaced my respirator, but it’s not in the dye kit. I expect it’s in the closet.

Over the past few weeks i’ve tied my shiburi/tie-die patterns in the rayon dresses and have been winding up skeins of crochet yarn on my experimental swift.

I hesitated this weekend to mix the dyes: it’s a very demanding week coming up and i don’t quite think i can be sure i can dye next Saturday as well. I need to make some decisions about dye intensities, quantities, and recipes, and i think i’m about ready to go.


IMG_0560Nightgown Tie patternNightgown Tie pattern
Old jeans dyebath layoutNightgown Tie pattern die lay-outNightgown Tie pattern die lay-out
Ad Hoc Yarn SwiftAd Hoc Yarn SwiftAd Hoc Yarn Swift

I did get a pleasant bit of cooking in. I’m glad i hadn’t yet cooked the baby artichokes i received in my organic box on Wednesday, because it wasn’t until yesterday morning that this recipe for a artichoke and orange salad with mint and saffron showed up in my reading list. I didn’t want to wait until i had slivered almonds and the right olives, so i made it anyway. I was in the mood for a warm dish, and couldn’t bear the thought of just draining off the saffron infused water the artichokes had been cooked in, so i added a bit of corn starch to thicken it and poured the warm dish over rice. Delicious.

IMG_0509Artichokes with Saffron and Oranges

After the cut, the dye kit inventory.
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To Dye For 2010: Initial Planning

Monday, April 5th, 2010
2010-CardiganDesignPages02

I’ve purchased three remaindered white 100% cotton jersey cardigans from Lands End and have an order to Dharma in my queue for t-shirts and a dress to pair with the cardigan. My dye choices from last year are rather bright and bold: and i realize i’ve yet to experiment with the brown and red dyes to see how they behave.

This weekend i spent some time with Photoshop and some random models from the web to see how my color choices might play out. I’m not entirely sure i would wear the brown-purple cardigan over the green and red shells, but i have an idea of what it might look like now. I also must recognize that if i were to over dye the brown purple with the green, i’d end up with something different from the emerald. I can’t be sure that the colors will simply be an translucent blend as with photoshop: my experiments with acrylic pigments have given me a good sense for how pigments don’t mix the same way the colors of light do.

Then there’s the way the dye takes to different fibers: depending on how the cotton has been treated the color may take with a vibrancy or a more faded tone: last year’s yarn experiments with mercerized cotton crochet thread and cotton yarn show the variations behind the cut.

No matter how “unexciting” one-tone dying is, i think i will make a simple red twin set and green twin set just for practical use. … I note that the low water immersion method i’d use is doesn’t exactly produce “simple,” and perhaps by the time i get to the green i’ll be more ambitious.

Then i’ll get adventurous with the brown purple pairing: this is because i have a variety or purple tops already (some of which are faded and i’ll experiment on as well), and some brown clothing items, so trying for a sophisticated multi dye process with this palette will be a pleasant adventure.

After the cut, the beginning of my 2010 dye plans, to be updated over the next few weeks.
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