Yarn dying fun continued.

I decided to wind up my first skein of yarn I dyed yesterday and thought whilst I was at it I may as well get some more pictures of all three skeins.

The first attempt: on the swift

All wound up.

Attempt number two, I wasn't happy with the basic red/blue/yellow I wanted purples and pinks and greens but wasn't really Happy with the products of my colour mixing skills, so firstly a trip to Hobbycraft was in order. I was going for a sort of rainbow, so after mixing a bunch of colours up and dying some 4" strands of yarn to see how the colours came out, I started on the pre-soaked skein (vinegar and water) I was too lazy to wind the yarn into a longer skein, so just tried to spiral the colours around which although not going as planned didn't look to bad, then I wrapped it in clingfilm and microwaved it as before. Unfortunately the colours mixed even more during the microwaving and came out rather messily! Attempt #3, I just decided to go for blue, pink and purple, covering a third of the skein in each colour and mixing gently where they met.
I had a very willing helper, in my eldest daughter, who was quite happy to help me rinse and squeeze out the yarn, though it may have had more to do with delaying bedtime and spending some uninterrupted time with me.

The results:

I have two un-dyed skeins left. I definitely need to look into methods of placing the colours as I have no idea how the knitted product will come out (knitting time is somewhat limited at the moment, and I have a lot of wip being ignored) but think this may become a bit of a new hobby. In case I forgot to mention yesterday the yarn is organic merino aran from Yarnundyed.

My sewing machine made a bit of an appearance yesterday, it has been a bit sadly neglected lately. It was a bit of an experiment really, I sewed an extra panel into a T-shirt to make it into a nursing T-shirt. I haven't tried it on yet, but am hoping it works just like my h&m nursing tops, which I love but don't really come in a wide range of colours or styles. Hopefully with the machine out though, I may get back into sewing again.

Yarn dying adventure

This is something I was thinking about a few months back but never got round to buying the yarn,then something reminded me and I ordered 5 skeins of organic merino aran from Yarnundyed.
It arrived super fast, so I dragged my poor kids round the supermarket looking for gel food colourings.
I found a pack of red, blue and yellow in Tesco and just dived straight in, the first try wasn't exactly as I was expecting. I soaked a skein in vinegar/water mix for a few hours then mixed some of the blue gel and red gel with a bit of water, trying to go for pink and blue. I then squeezed out the skein and attempted to paint it with a brush. With an impatient baby and a couple of small people eager to help it was taking too long, so I tried to suck up the food colouring mix with the empty tubes the gel had come from and squirted it on the yarn itself, then I wrapped it in cling film and put it into a microwave container and put it in the microwave for 3 minutes and then let it rest 3 minutes. I did this 3 times in total then rinsed it off.
It wasn't quite what I had expected, the red/pink was a lot paler than I had hoped and the blue was rather dominant.

I have since dyed another 2 skeins but as I don't seem to have the photo's I am certain I took I will share them later.