Category: Dye Experiments

In the pink.

Published on by Jen4 Comments

jenjoycedesign© over-dye

Sipping iced coffee & knitting next to an open window enjoying a very warm breeze wafting through, and listening to a cacophony of birds’ song.  I suppose it is a perfect spring day and I’m feeling utterly in the pink!   What is going on here is over-dying to change a cool ice pink in fingering-weight yarn to a slightly warmer tone…

jenjoycedesign© over-dye

Four skeins overdyed & drying on the line among the oak trees,  on a very warm  June afternoon.  Personally, pink is not my favorite color to wear,  although when you see forthcoming design mentioned in previously posted ‘Fishy’, you will get the Pink Thing.  Yes, and then you will see.  Note that the yarn that I un-plied in Fishy post was far too fine to design with, after all , but it will be very nice to sample the forthcoming design in a finer form.  

♣ ♣ ♣

I hope you are all enjoying your June, and for my nieces school is out for the summer, and we finally have a date to have a photo shoot  of them modeling the Camino Inca designs … so watch this space!

Unspun

Published on by Jen20 Comments

jenjoycedesign©unspun

I have been colossally distracted in a major yarn tangent in recent days. 

jenjoycedesign© unspun

I’ve been going through my ‘stash’ (that is yarn which is in one’s possession, otherwise free to use at whim), and over-dying & having a bit of fun.

But this particular little project was super fiddly and a major study in “un-spinning”, using my spinning wheel, ball-winder, swift, and dye pot.   On my spinning wheel, I literally unwound the 3 plies of a bulky-weight very soft 100% alpaca yarn I had,  while at the same time winding them into 3 separate balls. I splice-joined the 3 single balls into one skein,  and then attempted to relax the energized ‘singles’ with some simmer-dying. And relax they did!

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Even the spliced joins were completely invisible when I wound and re-wound on to the swift. Ever-so-slightly felted made a terrific halo (fuzz) when the final product was skeined.

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178 yards and 66 grams, of extremely soft alpaca single ply yarn, now ready for a delicious soft lace cowl.   I would think this would classify as sport-weight. I am frankly amazed at this result, and my eye is wandering through my stash now, with ideas to deconstruct. jenjoycedesign©013

Well, it was a huge amount of work, but its done & dusted and I’m very proud of such an alluring result.  That’s me on a beautiful day, I should be knitting socks, but sometimes distraction is good for creativity!

See all posts about Unspun !

New Growth

Published on by Jen18 Comments

jenjoycedesign© primavera

As I sit here at my table next to the window, peering out into the misty forest there is nearly a shock of new growth of madrone foliage.

jenjoycedesign© new growth

I have been inspired by the new growth in the woods lately, and decided to get out some dye, and run some experiments.  Unfortunately there are no before photos of this project, it was a skein of very heathery greyish blue, and the result of a very small amount of golden yellow powder dye in a slightly acidic dye bath, kept below simmer until the dye exhausted, is this …

jenjoycedesign© over-dyed

I am not a very good photographer, in that I really don’t know how to use a camera to grasp surface color variation, but I tried to put the yarn in different spaces to show the heathered flecks of bluer green and some of near neon yellow-green… and well, it all looks rather monotone from the eye of the camera. Can you see the heathered flecks?

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But, this whole dye project really has tickled a spot, and I realized that I have been dying many kinds of fiber for literally decades. I am having a bit of an epiphany today, a new growth in my thinking that I might want to dye single skeins, and make up some kits of printed patterns of my cowls to include some of my dyed yarns, I mean heck ~~everybody is doing it~~  kits, personal yarn lines, as well as the printed or downloadable pattern. The sky is no limit when one’s profession is in the realm of ‘Indie Knitwear Designer’. Thinking having these simple little kits available a haberdashery shop here on Yarnings.

I have the tools, the time, and a load of experience, so I’m enjoying a bit of dreaming just now !

jenjoycedesign© over-dyed 2

 

Over-Dyed

Published on by Jen8 Comments

jenjoycedesign©over dyed
My latest yarn play. I dyed a ton of yarn  ( details in previous post ) with a mind to knit them into an autumney-equinoxey sort of thing, but now I think not.  I’m calling this colorway ‘curry blend’, or maybe ‘marigolds’ .  Anyway,  I think it fitting for my recent post-pattern-writing crash,  to continue to chill out with a clean slate for a while.  Just knit socks, socks, and more socks, and not have anything big brewing beyond re-writing Penny Candy Socks pattern for the remainder of Spring.    Oh, just look at these cheerful balls of yarn perched , happily waiting for whatever comes.  I am very pleased with the dye this time !

Woodsy

Published on by Jen6 Comments

Over-dye madness.  Insanely intriguing varigations.

Here I have heaped the over-dyed green yarns for my Nine Year Old Niece’s sweater on top of the finished and waiting sweater for my Twelve Year Old Niece.

 The ‘bug-guts’ yellowy green has over-dyed

ever-so-nicely into a color

which reminds me of golden green tips of bright moss !

All the colors of the foliage in the forest are running through these four yarns in a very earthy woodsy colorway.

 I have roughly 200 grams each of four different greens, each with many varigations in their various journeys from dye bath to dye bath.


I’m not exactly sure what I am going to do with all of the crazy varigation.  Yesterday was all about dominating the yarn, now that I’ve had my way with the colors, not exactly sure.  I think I’ll let them dominate me for a while. At least until I get the sweater cast-on.  I actually love the challenge of listening to my instincts , and the yarn.  Sometimes this whole business of dying, knitting, and improvising is just  downright delicious  & fabulously exciting !