Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Ta-Da here are the results

So last thursday I brought my kids and hubby outside to kool-aid dye yarn. It was a great day for it. It was going to be a very hot and sunny day. We went out at about 9:30 and it was already 85. I had those disposable roasting pans lined with black garbage bags. I had the kool-aid in those little pint water bottles and my hubby took a big nail and made a whole in each top. I wanted to use those sports tops but I didn't have enough and I did not want to hear the 3 kiddies bicker over who had what. We all had a lot of fun and even my hubby got into it.

It might have been too hot. The yarn soaked up the dye really quick. I had 30 of those pint bottles and it was not enough. We were dyeing 3 hanks of peruvian bulky and 2 dk swish from Knitpicks. I split up the hanks into smaller hanks so the kids had more to dye. It should have been enough. I had one half hank of dk leftover and since it was already soaked I chose to use food coloring I had laying around. Then the bags were tied up and placed in the middle of the yard to bake.

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After about 5 hours i had no more patience for waiting and ran out and grabbed a bag. When i opened the bag the was clear water dripping out. Yeah they were done. I rinsed each one and hung them up to dry. I wanted to hang them outside but mother nature decided to break the heat with lots of rain and thunderstorms, so i hung them from the shower rod in my bathroom.

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Then I waited, and waited, and waited. All I kept thinking was "A watched pot never boils". Well I figured by the next day they would be dry. Wrong. The weather changed. It was now 70 and overcast/icky. The hanks stayed in the bathroom. By lunchtime i was done waiting. Bring on the fan.

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While i was waiting I made this.
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It is made from leftover yarn that I dyed with leftover henna. I named it my leftover headband. I forgot how fun it can be to just grab yarn and needles and not really have an idea what to make. It was done before the yarn.

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I also worked on my Hubby's sock. Yes singular. I have been working on this sock for about a year now. Size 00 and RA do not like each other. I can knit about a row or 2 and that is about it. My fingers hurt and I can not hold the needles anymore. So it has taken me a while. I did them toe up and when i reached this point Hubby said it was long enough. Yeah. Yipee. well after 3 tries at binding off loose enough (I always have a problem with this. I finally used size 3 needle.)

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I tried it on him. And it didn't fit quite right. It turns out my darling Hubby has a wide heel. Of course the heel I turned was not wide enough. It pulled the ankle ribbing down.

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Well since I refuse to frog this and redo, since it took about 4 months of work to get it done, I started a new pair. I am going the other way and I also doubled the yarn. Now I am using size 3 dpn. Much easier on my hands.

Okay The yarn at this point is now dry and here are the pics.

Food coloring.
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Tie dyed attempt.
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The kid's and hubby's.( only some of them - something happened to the other pic)For some reason the colors did not come out as bright with this yarn (I mixed the kool-aid the same way for all of the bottles)
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Here is the food coloring, tie dye and my attempt at self stripping sock yarn (in the middle). I am hoping it will work, but I love how the colors came out so I think I will like it anyhow.
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Here is a shot of all of the yarn balled. (To me it doesn't look like the same amount as I started with.)
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We all had fun and my kids want to do it again. I have plans for the bulky yarn my kids dyed but I can not discuss what here since I do not want to give it away (just in case those certain people read this)

1 comment:

bittenbyknittin said...

What fun! I can't wait to see what these experiements-in-dyeing look like knitted up.