Achieved another new thing in the land of knit...dying yarn. Yep, I got the Koolaid out, mixed it up, and painted some undyed yarn (Kraemer Natural-Jeannie). The yarn & koolaid were in a swag bag that my Mom & I got last June at Mosaic's Hokie Healing Project. (Side Note: the Hokie Healing Project involved over 8000 eight inch squares from knitters all over the world. A group of knitters decended upon Blacksburg last June & turned the squares into blankets for the families of those killer & injured at Virginia Tech last April. Scroll down to May through July entries at Mosaic's website for pictures.)
Mom asked what to do with her skein this past weekend and I offered to dye it for her. Yesterday I was to get the job done since it was so warm and sunny outside. First I had to take the ball of yarn
and reskein it using my swift. I tied off the skein using cotton yarn in 3 equal sections. By tying off using a "figure 8" at each point I was able to easily remove the skein from the swift without making an absolute mess out of it. I must say that it worked like a dream...no tangles and it was easily put back on the swift to wind back into a ball once it was dry.
To start the dying process I first added warm water and a splash of vinegar to the stock pot I use for washing socks...then added the yarn to soak. While that was happening I mixed up the 2 koolaid packages (black cherry & orange) with 1/4 cup of warm water. Once the yarn had been totally saturated with water I squeezed out the excess and placed the yarn into baking dish.
I then used a couple of stencil brushes to "paint" the colors on the skein. I randomly placed the colors throughout the skein letting the colors move into each other...Hokie Yarn was born. The directions called for you to cook the yarn in the microwave for 2 minutes, let it sit for 2 minutes, then finish off for another 2 minutes of cooking time. Once it had cooled down enough to handle I ran tepid water on it until the water was clear...this only took a minute. It looks pretty good although it seems to be more orangy red than burgundy. I now must have a full sized skein so I have enough yarn to for socks. Oh no...more yarn to buy!
Pictures to follow once Blogger let's me do that...tired of the waiting.
Mom asked what to do with her skein this past weekend and I offered to dye it for her. Yesterday I was to get the job done since it was so warm and sunny outside. First I had to take the ball of yarn
and reskein it using my swift. I tied off the skein using cotton yarn in 3 equal sections. By tying off using a "figure 8" at each point I was able to easily remove the skein from the swift without making an absolute mess out of it. I must say that it worked like a dream...no tangles and it was easily put back on the swift to wind back into a ball once it was dry.To start the dying process I first added warm water and a splash of vinegar to the stock pot I use for washing socks...then added the yarn to soak. While that was happening I mixed up the 2 koolaid packages (black cherry & orange) with 1/4 cup of warm water. Once the yarn had been totally saturated with water I squeezed out the excess and placed the yarn into baking dish.
I then used a couple of stencil brushes to "paint" the colors on the skein. I randomly placed the colors throughout the skein letting the colors move into each other...Hokie Yarn was born. The directions called for you to cook the yarn in the microwave for 2 minutes, let it sit for 2 minutes, then finish off for another 2 minutes of cooking time. Once it had cooled down enough to handle I ran tepid water on it until the water was clear...this only took a minute. It looks pretty good although it seems to be more orangy red than burgundy. I now must have a full sized skein so I have enough yarn to for socks. Oh no...more yarn to buy!
Pictures to follow once Blogger let's me do that...tired of the waiting.
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