Girl on the Rocks » dye | Girl on the Rocks

Tiny completed objects

karrie — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 02:37:59 +0000

While at work i found myself with an hour to waste and I was desperate to make something. I found some acrylic yarn in my office and a crochet hook in my pencil cup, and i whipped up this little guy…

photo courtesy of teapotgirl

he is a little amigurumi droplet. we thought he looked like melted mochi so we put him in the mochi tray. I am also working on crocheting some bacon – you can see it in the foreground.

I also whipped up a prototype baby beanie that is supposed to look like a buckeye. The pattern needs some improving, so i will probably give it another try.

i will be sending it off to my cousin for his new baby that is due in a few weeks.

I have also made some progress on the the only big knitting project that I am working on right now, the clapotis. I have 3 dropped rows!

and finally, the results of my solar dyeing adventure

whew! That is some bright green.

Blame it on the heat

karrie — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 03:40:58 +0000

I couldn’t help but notice that admist the recent heatwave, everyblog and their brother has been complaining about the heat. “It’s too hot to knit,” they cry. And while I understand that the oppressive temperatures preclude knitting a giant sweater on your lap, I am a little disappointed in everyone. Where is the innovation and creativity of the knitter? In the spirit of ‘when given lemons…’ I have decided to use the heat to my advantage, and do a little solar dyeing. I mean, shoot, if it’s already 90 degrees outside, I’ll let the sun do the work of dyeing my yarn for me.

I have an old roaster tray that I use for dying. i lined it with foil and made two foil trays to separate it into two parts. I soaked my yarn in some water and vinegar, rang it out a little bit, and put it in the trays. then i added the dye. next, I covered the roaster pan with saran wrap and sealed it with tape – the more like a greeenhouse, the better. I have collected several candy thermometers at garage sales, so I decided to dedicate one to to dyeing and I put that through the saran wrap so I could have an idea of how hot it would get inside.

I watched the temperature climb about 10 degrees every 15 minutes, and top off at about 120 F. i left it out there for several hours (maybe 3-4?) until the all the dye had been absorbed from the solution.

excuse the crappy camera-phone picture

I had a little dye leftover so I thought I would do one more skein to use up the dye. Only, the sun had moved to the other side of my apartment building and there was no more sun on my fire escape. you know how knit bloggers talk about how their neighbors must think they are crazy because they see them taking pictures of yarn outside… well, here is where I have them beat. I took my yarn to the hottest place I could think of. My car. Parked in the rock-star space right in front of my apartment building, i thought I could make a quick dash there without getting the neighbors attention. Wrong. i ran into two of them on my way to my car with a roaster full of yarn and then started taking pictures of it.

Wow! this really did the job. 2 hours later when I went to get the yarn out, the handles of the roaster were so hot i had to use oven mitts! the thermometer read 145 degrees. sweet.

I am pretty happy with how the yarn looks so far. Usually i use an immersion technique, not a paint on the dye technique, so there are some flaws in the first batch. I didn’t really work the dye through the yarn, and some of the yarn in the middle has white patches. i think will look nice in the end though. Look for dry, reskeined yarn photos soon!

So much stuff

karrie — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 22:51:40 +0000

My Deep-V is speeding along… i have completed the waist decreases, so i can’t really try it on easily anymore.
It looks pretty curvy… i hope it fits! I had some sock yarn dyeing success…. Inspired by the california poppy (i accidentally typed poopy first -hah!)

(photo from flickr)I made a skein that I am calling Poppysocks
because i really need more sock yarn.

Crockpot dyeing

karrie — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 18:59:06 +0000

This weekend I spent a little bit of time with my dyepot. My dyepot is a crock pot that i got a garage sale and I couldn’t be happier with it. Every time I dye fibers am a little nervous that everything on the bottom will come out gray or brown of something, but the colors magically remain separate.

You can’t tell from the picture really, but I was trying to show you that the water really did turn clear. That yarn is from some fiber i bought from lanas de libelula (super-nice. go buy stuff from her). i navajo plied it into an awesome 3 ply bulky yarn. Not too shabby. there isn’t enough of it for me to want to keep it…. So i stuck it in my etsy shop . If it doesn’t go away i might make a hat out of it.

I also spun some yellow dyed merino roving into a yarn that I am a little bit in love with……Must make more…..

And at the top in this photo is some blue superwash merino sock yarn that will be finding its way into my
shop soon. It will be a great deal. i tell ya.

And in case you were wondering, the
roving that i photographed drying the tub has been turned into this:

A newly discovered benefit of having no roomates

karrie — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 21:14:28 +0000

Check this out!

I can fill my bathtub with yarn, and not have to
worry about preventing anyone but myself from taking a shower! This weekend I
did a tiny bit of experimenting with the soy silk that i bought almost a year
ago.

The first is a two-ply yarn. One ply
is wool, and the other is soy silk. The second is a single ply that has the soy
silk “blended” in with the wool. I tried to card the wool and the silk together
and it kinda worked, but the silk is so fine that it never wanted to leave the
card. It came out kinda marbled, and I like it. I dyed the yarns together in
my crockpot with red and orange, and I am really happy with the way they turned
out. the soy silk took a little bit of the color, but not much. I don’t think
there is enough of either of these for me to want to keep them, so i stuck them
in my etsy
shop where you can buy them, or check more (and bigger) photos if you
wish.

What’s Cooking?

karrie — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 23:51:08 +0000

Why,
it’s some roving!! This summer at the El Cerrito city wide garage sale i picked
up a crock pot for $1 in anticipation of using it for a dye pot – and today was
the day! I was so sick at looking at sheep-colored yarn, so this weekend i
picked up some gray, brown and black dyes. Before i put this roving in, I dyed
some yarn that i had spun

Man, I really like it. I am interested to
compare the dyed yarn with yarn made from dyed
roving.

I also kool-aid dyed some of
the first “yarn” that I made, and i think i might make a hat out of
it.

I also tried to Navajo-ply after
watching a little video on the Joy of Hand Spinning webpage. It kinda worked.
It was certainly fun. This is what turned
out:

Tomorrow is my last night at
spinning class… how will i spin after that?? why with my new Lendrum
spinning wheel!

I got it yesterday at Carolina
Homespun. That is a really great place, and i am so happy that they
had this wheel in stock. It certainly has everything that a knitter and a
spinner could want. Gen, Cheryl and I went, and we each left with a
wheel and a ton of beautiful fibers. So far it works like a dream. I got the
jumbo-ply head, but i haven’t yet tried it.Â