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Thursday, March 03, 2005

Dyeing when I can't knit

I've been keeping myself busy with work and other things so that I don't think too much about my lack of knitting. Last night I satisfied my crafty interests by dyeing some yarns I've been meaning to dye for a while. These were two new skeins of 100% virgin wool dyed with Wilton Icing dyes (handpainted on). Again, I'm really just so impressed with the vibrancy of the colors that result from this dye! These skeins remind me of summer by the pool, guess my heart is in the wrong season right now :)



If you're looking for a tutorial on dyeing with Wilton Dyes, Jess at Fig and Plum found one here. I should emphasize that this tutorial does not show the way I use the wilton dyes. Perhaps next time I will do a nice photo tutorial of that. But I basically soak the yarn in water and vinegar until its nice and saturated. Then I place it over a long thing of saranwrap, and actually paint the dye onto the yarn with my fingers (wearing latex gloves of course). Then I wrap up the yarn into a saranwrap turd and do the nuke 2 min, pause 4 min, nuke 2 min, pause 4 min... until the water runs clear.

vintage pattern of the day


Question to other crafters
Does anyone know how to fold Kanzashi hair pieces? Those pretty fabric flowers? Or could someone point me to a nice resource?

If you don't know what I'm talking about. It's like this

7 comments:

ThreeOliveMartini said...

that yarn is fabu!

Cheryl said...

Gorgeous yarn! What are you going to make with it?

Lori said...

thank you all! I'm very tempted to keep and use this yarn, but I think it's going out as an RAOK to someone special :)

Mz Mar said...

The yarn you dyed is beautiful!!What fantastic colors!
Hmmm, maybe I should give this dying a try??
Mar

Christina said...

Oooh, what beautiful colors. Nice work!

~ Christina

Laura.Y said...

Lovely colors there.

jess said...

Fan-tastic! I love your color choices. In fact, I think I first saw these yarns as part of a RAOK you sent someone else, and I was like, those are neat, I wonder who did it? you, of course. :)

But even more interesting... The tile in your bathroom is EXACTLY the same as ours in Brooklyn - that salmony color and the black edge. There must have been one darned impressive sale at ACE hardware a few decades ago ;)

jess
www.figandplum.com

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