Adventures in Dyeland pt. 1

One thing that I've been getting more interested in lately is hand-dyed yarn.  So many of the podcasts I watch have connected Etsy shops where they sell yarn, project bags, and other yarn crafting whatnots.  The colors of the yarn and all the different looks are absolutely jaw dropping!  And so, like the good DIY gal I am, I bought some white sock yarn, wound it into a hank on my niddy noddy, and tried my hand at dying it.

::What You Need - Yarn, Vinegar, Food Color, (not pictured) Pot, Stove-top, Water::

This wasn't my first go at hand-dying. I did some back when I lived in Alabama. That yarn actually got crocheted up into a pretty striped tam.  Anyway, I used food coloring and Easter egg dye pellets this time.

::Soaking Yarn::

::Dye Bath - Hot Water, Vinegar, Food Coloring::

I set the yarn to soak in water and white vinegar for a while before going into the dye pot on the stove.  The dye bath I made was a bunch of yellow food coloring.  When it got up to a simmer, I put in the yarn.  I chopped up some Easter egg pellets to sprinkle around for a 'speckled' effect, but I let the water simmer too much and ended up with a more tonal overall color.

::In the Dye Bath::

I turned off the heat and let the yarn marinate in the pot for about an hour to soak up as much dye as possible.  Then it was wash time! I rinsed/ washed the yarn with a bit of dish soap until the water ran clear and set it out in the sun to dry.

::Rinsing Yarn::

::Exhausted Dye Bath::

I will confess the color isn't exactly what I saw in my head.  It came out much more orange because of the pellets.  I have a couple more skeins of white yarn to play with and I'm hoping those will be better.  I also want to try dying yarn with plants.  I think that will be a really cool adventure.

::Finished Yarn::

Have you tried hand-dying anything, yarn or otherwise? I've been known to dye clothing when I get tired of them lol :). Other than my gold color, what other colors should I try?

Crafternoon #18: More Holiday Crafting & a Resurrection

Crafter-freakin-noons y'all!!!!  Yep... that just happened :)

I got a good deal of work done on my holiday crafts today... I mean, I'm half way through my cousin Ron's gift.  The idea I had for him was a set of 'man slippers' so off to search Ravelry I went.  After much looking I came upon this pattern for Crochet Moccasins.  I decided to use 2 strands of yarn (navy & grey). So far I've completed one and let me tell you that pattern needs a smidge of work.  It just has a few places where the wording is not clear and I ended up wasting so much time doing things the wrong way because of how it was written.  Oh well, now that I know, the second slipper will go so much faster.  I'll likely start on the mate later on this week.

Comfy looking huh? =)

I also did a few more rows on the Drop in the Pond afghan #2. To be precise I finished 3 rows while in a poetry club meeting.  Slowly but surely making progress on it.  I should just devote a few days this coming week to finish it up.  I was looking at the first Drop in the Pond afghan I made and kinda want to put some more border rows on it... It feels unfinished to me for some reason.  I don't think I shared the completed first afghan on here.  So here are Drop in the Pond (DP) afghans #1 & #2.

Completed DP #1

Progress on DP #2

Lastly, I did some dyeing today.  It was more of a refashioning project.  You see, a while ago I got a cream cardigan from American Eagle and eventually didn't want it anymore.  But instead of giving it away, I decided to dye it brown because I had been looking for a brown cardigan to wear to church and work, but couldn't find one I liked.  So I popped it in the sink with some RIT dye.  45 mins- to an hour later I chucked it in the wash to see what the finished product would look like... It looked HORRIBLE...  The dye didn't take evenly so it was all splotchy and whatnot and I was like, there's no way I'm wearing this!  So into my "to be fixed one day when I have time" pile it went.

Today was that day. I pulled out my new/old dye pot I got from the Ghostown Flea Market and prepared another brown dye bath.  This time, I made sure the water was pretty near boiling when I put the sweater in to insure I got a deep color.  That little sweater was in that bath for nearly 2 hours.  When the water cooled down, I rinsed the piece and ran it thru the washer and dryer, and I'm very glad that I didn't give up on this cardigan.  Now it's the perfect dark brown and the only other alteration I'm considering is changing out the buttons, but the dye bath was so hot that what use to be cream colored buttons are now brown too, lol.

Roommate said I looked like a witch stirring potions in my huge pot with my large wooden spoon...

Awkward self portrait at midnight... check...

Close up.  The buttons actually look kinda olive or army green... I'm going to change the out for gold ones.

So yep, that was my crafternoon. We didn't have anyone over for real, but sometimes I appreciate being able to crochet by myself at home.  Next Sunday, Alina and I are going to the Spin & Stitch circle at Yarn Expressions.  I was telling my mom that I'm so much more likely to go to things like that with a friend than by myself... especially if I think I'm going to be outnumbered by old ladies.  No one wants to be outnumbered.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and got some extra rest with this time change and all... Speaking of, I need to get my tail in the bed... Gotta be to work tomorrow morning.  Goodbye crafty weekend.

Weekend Gallivanting

Hey there :)

I ventured out to the flea markets again yesterday :) I only got two things and they were a bit more pricey than what I normally spend on much of anything...

The enamel flower pin was from this lady's booth who only sells vintage jewelry at the Limestone Flea Market. She has A LOT of pieces. I took some time to talk to her before buying the pin. She told me that most of her pieces are purchased from estate sales so they're authentically vintage and not "vintage-style".  I think that my roommate will really like her booth. There were a few brooches that I saw that reminded me of some of my favorite bloggers, so that was kinda cool :) I paid $8 for the brooch and had super strong buyers remorse on the way home, but after doing some Etsy research, I found that $8 was a good price for a vintage enamel piece.

The pot is from the Ghostown Flea Market. I was super excited to find it in a "corner." I put the quotations around corner because the Ghostown Flea Market is outside in a really dirty, dust-bowl of a side of the road type location and I found the pot next to one of the shanty buildings complete with spiderwebs... I got it for $10 and I'm looking forward to dyeing all types of things in my new dye pot! Yay!


Here are some shots of the Ghostown Flea Market. It was creepily cool and for a while I was a smidge nervous because of the 'Redneck & Proud' signs around and the out of town location... but the people were really friendly. I even ended up talking to the guy who sold me the pot about what plants I can use for dyeing. That was pretty cool.



Welcome to Ghostown Flea Market Highway 72

Inside the "Hard Times Thrift Store" at the market.

There's a haberdashery!

I don't think they actually make hats at the haberdashery though... I couldn't go inside because the owner was off at a nascar race. Maybe another day.

That's all for my flea market adventures. I hope you're having a great day :)

What's on My hook? #11

Hi there! ^.^

Today's WOMH post is featuring some very special yarn... Yes, my 3 hand-dyed wool yarns have been crocheted up into a lovely finished object.

3 perfect little yarn cakes ^.^

I decided that I want to wear more hats. Now being of the natural hair persuasion and having gobs of hair, most hats simply don't fit. Solution: make a slouchy hat that will fit my hair :) Yay! And here it is...

 

Pardon the flash... it's night time.

I really like how the orange marbled yarn came out. I think it's my favorite...  Hmm... what else, the size of the beanie is sufficient for my hair when it's twisted down and there's extra space for when it's out. Since I used wool, this hat will be a perfect "pick me up shot of color" in the winter time.  Lastly, I'm not yet sold on the pom-pom, but that's a minor thing. 

I'm so proud of this hat and can't wait to wear it out.  I think I'm going to go ahead and make up a few of these. It was a relatively quick project and is very flexible color-wise.

I hope you had a nice day, oh and I'll post a picture of the hat in daylight so you can see the actual colors :)

Another Sabbath Crafting

Hello there ^.^

I am so very excited to tell you about my Sabbath crafting!  I finally did some dye work!! Hurray!  I have been watching lots of videos on youtube about dyeing yarn with food coloring/kool-aid and I really wanted to try.

I used a ball of off white Paton's Classic Wool (thrifted), food coloring, and white vinegar. I wound off 3 hanks of roughly 48 yards each. [48 is one of my favorite numbers... if you were wondering.]  Anywho, I dyed the first hank a deep, saturated red-orange.  When I tell you it was stinkin' awesome to see how the dye absorbed into the wool and cleared out of the water, it really was!! I want to dye everything now! lol... Here's a picture of the first dye-bath:

  Before putting the yarn in the dye, I soaked it in water/vinegar mix.

 

Yum, looks spaghetti-ish :) 

And this is how the water cleared out when the dye was finished.  Cool right?

At first, I was only planning to dye one hank of yarn, but after the first one I couldn't help trying other techniques. The next hank I did was my attempt at a 2 color space dye.  I wanted to have spaces that were yellow and spaces that were red. By the time all the dye was absorbed, I had learned that space dyeing

is harder than it looks and red dye pretty much takes over everything... every... thing...

The last hank was first dyed yellow and then I added a very very diluted red to the bath to create a pretty yellow-orange color. It actually reminds me of sweet potato. I didn't take progress photos of  the second and third dyeings, you get to see the finished products.

I'm planning to make a beaning with this yarn. I haven't fully decided yet tho... I'm just really proud of how they came out. I think they're very pretty & I can't get over how deeply saturated the red-orange yarn came out.  It's so beautiful...  But now... I'm looking at the red and yellow space dye attempt and I'm considering re-dyeing it tomorrow. It has light spots where not much dye got in & I don't like the unfinished look... we'll see how I like it tomorrow in the sunlight.

Well, goodnight! I've got to get some sleep because tomorrow afternoon is the Fiber Art Work yarnbombing. I've got most of my pieces together and hopefully it won't be lame. Wish me luck!

What's On My Hook #9

Hello there 0.0

I've been thinking about this post for a few days now.  Today's what's on my hook projects are the scarf dye job and my yarn bombing beginnings. :)

The first project: dip dye the scarf ends and hang to create an ombre effect.  I decided to go with blue for the first go-round.

I ended up dying it twice (so far) because the first dye job was super light. It looks really cool tho :) I rinsed the first dye out & it wasn't deep enough, so I re-dipped it. And it's currently hanging on the porch blending.

The darker blue on top is the second dip. See how light the color is after rinsing? Hopefully, it'll be better tomorrow.

The second project: yarn bomb idea #1. I want to do something quick to make and easy to put up for my OU bomb. I gotta get my bombing confidence up.

It's a little spider web :) It may be installed this weekend. Possibly...  Anywho, I figure I'll make a bigger one and install it between this railing by the library parking lot. I'm getting more & more excited for this bombing plan ^.^  I'm going to make an event on facebook to invite local knitters/crocheters to bomb on the last Sunday of the month.

Well, goodnight. I've gotta go to sleep so that I can be perky & awake for accounting tomorrow, lol. I hope all is well with you. Peace.