Dyeing at Long Last

At long last I got on with some dyeing today. I decided to start with self striping yarn for socks and chose four jewel colours of emerald, ruby, sapphire and amethyst. I now have very pink hands and some lovely yarn drying in the shed/studio.

This is the table, covered with a house-painting drop sheet. On the drop sheet are long stretches of gladwrap. (Gladwrap ended up being the most costly item, because self-striping yarn done in a 40m skein needs 40m of gladwrap) The yarn is placed across the gladwrap and painted with suitable dyes, then wrapped up in wrap and put in the bucket.

You can see in the second picture that I have just finished the green/emerald stripe. 40m of yarn for four colours, means paint a quarter of the yarn in each colour. I had the ruler handy to check the lengths. Wrap each section in gladwrap and proceed.

When it is all done put it in a plastic zip-lock bag with a bit of the zip open and steam it or microwave it. Steam for 20 minutes or microwave for 2 minutes, then rest and cool then 2 minutes more. Microwaving is more risky so watch it carefully and keep sniffing in case you get a whiff of burning wool! DH asked me what I was cooking because I don't think he fancied it for tea.

When it is cool, rinse each section and then press out moisture in a towel and hang to dry. I shall wind the balls tomorrow. If I wind half of it in one ball and then start the next ball with the same colour, I should have two matching balls of self-striping sock yarn. I counted the skein rounds as I went and did 42 so the sums should be easy!

I shall have to make an effort to finish the second red sock first. Can't have two pairs of socks on the go at once. Can I?

Handling the long skein can be a bit of a problem. I wound it, originally from a cheap ball of Bendigo machine washable 4ply/fingering from one door handle to another at the end of the passage. This worked well but be careful not to cross over the yarn! This can result in an unseemly display of tears for someone my age.

Tomorrow, I shall look for some well placed door handles again and walk back and forth and be a lot more careful. Now is not the time to bugger it all up. I could hand wind it but I think I'll niddy-noddy it as I walk, then put it on the swift and use the ball winder so that it looks more professional for pics.

My next dyeing will also be stripes but I smugly thought that a double ended skein would be fine for make two matching balls and now I realise that separating it afterwards into two balls will indeed, be tricky. Serves me right but I'm still thinking it over and may even follow advice and get another ball-winder. I must admit I would have bought another one long ago but couldn't think of a reason for having it! Also I shall have to teach DH how to use it and wind at the same speed as me. At the moment, that's the best idea, thanks Taphophile.

It all takes a lot more time than I thought so off now to make tea

Cheers for now to all out there