Dyeing Experiments!
I’ve been playing with dyeing over the last several days. I’ve restricted myself to Wilton’s Food Coloring though. Partially because I have this *need* for every color offered whenever I jump into a new medium and it’s cheaper to do that with food coloring and partially because we’re closing in on the holiday season so spending for myself needs to decrease.
I’m unable to show off all the dyeing because some of it is still drying and others of it is even still in the rinsing stage. So, I’m declaring this week Dyeing Week on the blog :-) The posts won’t all be dyeing posts but I’m anticipating another one or two this week. That or course means lots of pictures and colors which isn’t a bad thing around here seeing as most leaves and color are rapidly disappearing, leaving us with the usual browns.
First up, some dyeing I did on Thursday night while DH was at his write-in and then the midnight showing of HPGOF. I present Greens!
I put a skein of laceweight and a skein of sock weight into the dye bath together. Since I had no prior experience to know how much food coloring to add, I just kept dipping my little disposable Ziplock container into the bath, mixing some more food coloring in and then pouring that back into the pot. I’d let that exhaust and I’d repeat the process if I wanted a deeper color. I pulled the laceweight sooner than the sock yarn. The laceweight contains only teal and juniper green. I think it turned out great. There is a bit of subtle varigation for interest, but not so much that it would detract from intricate lace patterns. Of course I would need to get over my fear of lace shawls for this to ever be tested in practice, but that is a theory anyway :-)
With the sock yarn I got a little more daring and added in some additional colors. The sock yarn is mostly the teal and juniper green like the lace weight just more of it, but in later dye baths I added some royal blue and some moss green to the mix as well. I was aiming for a bit more blue to the sock yarn so it might go back in for another bath of some royal blue. But, then again it is kind of growing on me as well. Another difference for the sock yarn — when I added the additional dyes I poured it directly onto the yarn resulting in a bit more variation in color on the yarn. Initially I had been using tongs to kind of hold the yarn to one side and adding the dye and mixing it in a bit and avoid a direct hit on the yarn as much as possible.
I am very pleased with both of these yarns! I got a bit more experimental with the next two I’ll be sharing later in the week. I tried some unconventional ways of dyeing them or preparing the yarn before dyeing them to be a bit more specific. I can’t wait for them to dry enough to get some good photos to share of those.
Now, back to the stove, though not for dyeing. I’m making cheese today. Ost kaka cheese that we’l freeze so it’s ready for the holiday season at some point. Our regular milk delivery day is now Thursdays, but with Thanksgiving this week it meant we get the milk delivered today. And, with all the writing DH still didn’t get any cheese made from last week’s delivery. So, I’m doing the Ost Kaka cheese and am actually kind of excited to be doing it. Ever since I show DH how to make Ost Kaka (which is what started him on the cheese making kick) I haven’t gotten to make it myself. So, it’ll be a nice change of pace for me to do it myself. It’ll almost be like being home for the holidays which I haven’t been since 1999.
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