Filed under: Dyeing
I’ve been playing in my mind’s eye by making yarn that was multicolored but not handpainted or “pour dyed.” I thought I’d see what resist dyeing was like. Probably many novice dyers accidentally have made resist-dyed yarn by leaving skein ties too tight, but what happened when you tied them really really tight?
I started with 4 skeins of white wool, purchased as a conference souvenir the year I presented my doctorate work to a group of my advisor’s colleagues. (Talk about nervous-making!)
I wound the yarn tightly on the niddy noddy and tied each hank as hard as I could in 12 places. (Incredibly, the most time-consuming step of the entire dye job was skein tying!)
Once released from the niddy, the yarn puffed up like little sausage links.
I put it in a light “raspberry” dyebath (more Country Classic dye, aka One Shot – I have such a motherload of that stuff!). After dyeing (215 F, 30 min; cool to RT, rinse, spin dry), I removed the ties. Before untying, the yarn was surprisingly homogeneous.
I hoped to slide the hank ties instead of cutting and retying, but they would not move on wet fiber. All ties were cut, and new ties were made in different locations. I saw that very small regions (1 cm long) had been untouched by dye.
I next overdyed the retied skeins in a light grey to “sadden” the color and give it a smokey overtone. I love red-family dyes over naturally grey fiber, and I thought I’d try to replicate that look. In my imagination, I thought it would be a little more… sophisticated?… to have an overall misty raspberry color with highlights of the original raspberry and a hint of the original grey. I untied the skeins and saw this:
Isn’t it interesting how the grey brought out the purple color and damped the pink? I wouldn’t have predicted that. Yarn was rehanked to distribute color blips and to develop a better overall idea of the yarn color.
That’s pretty nice, I think! Anyway, I think I’m done playing with this yarn. If you’d like it, I’ll send all 4 skeins for $25 (I’ll pay shipping in the US). FSM knows I have enough to knit already – let’s get this out of the house! Specs on the yarn – 100% wool (definitely soft enough for next-to-skin use), 4 x 50 g, DK weight. Handwash cool, dry flat.
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that is so funny because i was just thinking about that exact dye method when i was falling asleep for a nap today! i saw on someone’s blog where they used strips of rags to tie the yarn, so that it made longer white spots—about 1 inch. and then dyes the whole thing red. it makes a really cool yarn and something i’ve been meaning to try!
Comment by anne 08.19.06 @ 7:21 pmOh gorgeous! One of my friends and I have been wanting to try some dying and you are doing nothing to change that feeling.
Comment by Marnie 08.19.06 @ 10:34 pmAck – you’ve been reading my mind! I had been thinking about this and, as it happens, have acquired some dyes I wanted to play with this weekend. Heheh….
Comment by Robbyn 08.20.06 @ 8:27 amHey, that looks very good. I just bought 4 skeins of dye-it-yourself (otherwise known as white) laceweight merino from Knitpicks and I’m considering what to do with it.
It’s nice yarn, I’m knitting the Adamas shawl with 2 skeins of grapey purple right now. I like this color, but I hate, hate, hate, their variegated yarns. Whoever designs their colorways has no color sense at all!
I want to do a subtle variegation that will look good without overwhelming the lace pattern. I’m thinking either light to dark monochrome or close complements. Also considering knitting it up on a knitting machine and doing a color progression a la Sara Lamb
Comment by Katherine 08.20.06 @ 10:42 amLove the color! What is the yardage? (Not that I need more yarn…)
Comment by kmkat 08.21.06 @ 12:00 amIs this who i think it is?? Do you remember me? It’s Julia Z (JISA 88, 89, remember?) if it’s YOU, let me know!!!
Comment by Julia 08.21.06 @ 12:38 amOne of the things you can learn from some of the dye books (and sometimes the dye catalogs) is that black dye is a very, very dark colour, usually, I think, blue, red or green. Anyway, one of the ways to see which it is is to dye with a very, very light tint of that colour — for some reason, the undertones of the colour become more visible. (You can do this with any colour as well as black.) It can give you some ideas about how to play down or play up a component colour in a particular dye you’re working with. Very very nice job.
Comment by Ted 08.21.06 @ 7:37 amI experimented with this method a while ago to see if it was something I wanted to do on a regular basis, and oh my, the tieing takes FOREVER! Ridiculously long time. Your results are beautiful!
Comment by Purly Whites 08.21.06 @ 12:57 pmThat *is* really nice. Amazing what lurks in that evil mind of yours. :)
Comment by claudia 08.22.06 @ 8:00 amThat’s gorgeous! I’m squirreling this post away for the next time I feel like dyeing with subtle colours!
Comment by Megan 08.22.06 @ 12:50 pm