Dyeing Day Pics to Come

Cripes, I went nuts yesterday dyeing. I also felt like I was about to croak because it was a thousand degrees in the kitchen. That's Kelvin too. Okay, I exaggerate. Cable was down most of the day. 8 trucks and various, "Clown Car Keystone Cop," capers were something to behold, if you felt like venturing out into a Michigan summer. The heat that makes you sweat in the shower. I wish that, "Sweat in the shower," was mine, but alas, it is not. It's a great phrase for general misery in heat. Humidity. A day you wished you lived in a state with drier air. Except we have water and to dye, one must have it.

I had spent most of the day Saturday getting skeins ready for the long week to come. When I get yarn ready to dye, I go a little nuts. I have different colors of acrylic to tag it with, so I don't mistake one kind for another. I tag it and if it's on a cone, many times it is, I run it up on my skein winder. That is an electric gadget that wants to kill me. Photos to be inserted when it gets light out.

I can run three at a time and often do them in 200 gram hanks, which is two, or four skeins, depending on the size of the final skeins I plan to sell. Then the tieing starts. I run figure 8 ties through the skeins four times, plus two choke ties. I detest tangles.

The night before I dye, I place them all in a nice bath with a detergent, often Dawn, and maybe some Citric acid. Sometimes I have dyes that I want to pop onto the yarn like magic and this does it. Sometimes, I add it later. I should note that this is for animal hair and silk, not cotton. That's a horse of a different color.

So, Saturday night I prepped 26 skeins of yarn to dye Sunday. Not the most in a day, but all labor intensive.

I did blues and a two reds. I consider pink in the red family, so you can infer some pinks in there. All are variegated. Meaning, I dye different colors on the same skein.

Four large crock pots, the oven at ready and I'm raring to go. Each of these color combinations is carefully thought out, but each has the virtue of never being tried before. One large skein is going to be a new version of Storm Warning, a grey, black and blue number that looks like a storm at sunset. I've always added the black at the end and never liked it. It's one of Julie's formulas and it looks great on roving, but not yarn. This time I twisted the skein up, it was a double, and did a layer of lack on the outside. Re-twist, a grey, retwist the first blue then I got all daring and added a second blue. Gasp. It was all warm and snuggly in the crock last night. I have no idea how it will look today. I let my colors exhaust overnight. I get better colors that way and don't have to deal with hot yarn.

I also did, "Korean Wedding Dress," a red and goldish color, "Raspberry Beret," and three other blues. I'll rinse them and fix any gaps, or misses in a bit. Again, it's early and I like light.

Among all this, I've started to dye fabric. I always had that as a plan. To dye yarn, roving and fabric. This project is three tee-shirts of mine. One, I bought to dye. Two had stains on them from dyeing, even though I'd not used dye for cotton and I wanted to make them tie-dye and pretty. I did the cram a jar effect. I soaked the shirts in soda water, salt, warm water and MX dyes. The dyes for cotton are different from the dyes for wool. You can use the cotton dyes on wool, but not the other way round. I put them in small jars overnight and will pull them out today. One of the shirts was new and supposed to be ready to dye. HAH! It had sizing in it. I know it did not dye and I will have to wash the sizing out. I could feel it, but at that point I was in dye-ville and not really thinking. That's why I prep one day and dye another. I have to get my mind on one thing and one only, or it all goes blah.

On tap for today. Finishing the shirts, re-dyeing the one I have to wash the sizing out of, dyeing two colorways, and finishing yesterday's work with hand-painting if something has a spot that's not dyed on it. I never mean for it to happen, but it can.

One of the awesome things I learned and love is what dyes like to break. Go back to the colors they are made  of and which are the nicest when they do that. There is a color from one of my companies called, "Gold." It's just a deep yellow, but it is a nice color. I can sprinkle this on top of my water and it breaks into blue, yellow and a nice red. It's on my red from yesterday. I will probably do a little more of that color on the color from yesterday.

The main point? I'm having fun.

Gene-Gene is at camp. The house feels lonely.