One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other….

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Rayna

One of these things just doesn’t belong.

I have spent the last week or so doing experiments in hand dyeing yarn. Right now, I am just kettle dyeing as I don’t have the set up in my studio for hand painting yet. (Oh, it’s coming…the day is fast approaching…)

Colour theory is fascinating…sometimes you need a lot less of one colour than another, when you are blending to make a third. Sometimes, when you don’t read the label and use the “wrong” red, surprising, beautiful things happen.

Sometimes, when you vary the process on Experiment #4, something turns out differently.

See that green in the top right corner? NOT what I had in mind, and not at all in keeping with the first three skeins. I got the colour all wrong AND I changed one little step in the process. As a result (I think) and it came out nearly entirely solid, save for that weird little yellow splotch. Definitely not a keeper. Back into the dye bath with ye.

And it overdyed into this wonderful colourway:

It’s actually my favourite so far, I think. (Although that red-purple is really gorgeous!) The question now is, could I ever replicate it? Unlikely but it might be fun to try.

Wonder what’s on this evening’s experiment docket?

I know…Orange!!

A Grand Delivery

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Rayna

A few weeks ago, my husband and I decided to allot some money to “play”. We each had a specified amount to spend and I thought, “What would I like to buy from this newfound wealth?” He bought a new iPad Air, but frankly, except for the fact that I’d like it to have a larger capacity, I could not justify a new iPad.

So I started thinking, what crafting supplies have I wanted but have yet to spend the money to purchase? It hit me…supplies for two of my lesser practiced skills….designing and dyeing.

So I ordered some stitch dictionaries to round out my collection, and I picked up some acid dye powder. I also snagged 20 skeins of undyed merino nylon sport yarn (which if I am to be completely honest, I’ll admit were supposed to be sock yarn) and a few batches of undyed fibre.

Yesterday, the box showed up at the door.

So many exciting things to have fun with, once I got to the end of my workday!

So after dinner, hubby went off to his night shift and I decided my first attempt was going to be a pine-y green from the six colours that were in my “starter” kit.

I still have the liquid dyes but I really want to transition over to these so I figured I may as well get started.

So I added the colours and turned on the slow cooker. Mental note to self…cooker works better when actually plugged in….*sigh*

When I was done with the stirring, I added the yarn and it occurred to me that I was going to be sad with the result. After all, I had made a point to make sure the dye bath was totally homogeneous so now I was going to have solid green, right? And I really didn’t want that.

Well, as it turns out, hand-dyeing is part colour mixing, part alchemy. The yarn…turned out nothing like I thought it would. Nope…not at all.

On the line outside this morning, it was clear there were paler parts, and, O happy day, some parts that definitely veered off towards the blue. I could not have been happier with the non-solid result.

Since I have no idea whether I can reproduce this, I may earmark this for sport weight socks for me. And with the number of skeins I have, this may push me to design a sport weight sock pattern…but I digress.

Now I have another skein soaking…can’t decide whether to try orange, or some version of pinky-purpley-fuschia. This is entirely too much fun!!

FO: More Hermione’s Socks

Posted on May 6, 2015 by Rayna

I had not realized that it had been so long since I had been here. I loathe winter. With the fiery passions of a thousand suns…the ones that never seem to shine from January to March. I get a serious case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, and I just want to curl up in a ball and do nothing until spring.

I think this year, I thought it would be different. I had this romantic notion of being back in my home province, in my own house, with snow falling gently outside while I knit and spin and accomplished so much through the cold winter. Yeah…no. I did some knitting and some spinning, to be sure. And my brain went on a short design binge (none of which have been actually knit or written up yet), but otherwise my creativity did hit somewhat of a wall.

Last month, my dear friend Val sent me a box filled with yarn goodies, mostly in bright/spring-y colours. The box included a gorgeous skein of Socks That Rock in a colour called “Hope Springs Eternal”.

When I was going on a two week business trip last month and needed a project to take on about 20 hours of flying and lots of hotel room evenings, I used it to cast on another pair of Hermione’s Everyday Socks. This pattern, along with my own Petty Harbour pattern, are my go-to I-don’t-have-to-think sock patterns.

After kitchenering the first toe at the end of week one, with a 14 hour trip home still in the offing, I was worried. There was suddenly a real possibility that I’d run out of yarn.

Kitchenering a sock at 37000 feet somewhere over Colorado, as one does…

Now since no one, I thought foolishly, knits a pair of socks in two weeks, I had failed to bring along any other yarn. My friend, Shireen, to the rescue! She lovingly brought me a skein of SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock…JUST in case.

What I did not count on was 1) how super busy conferences can be, especially when my company is hosting and 2) that I would get a cold that would pretty much lay me flat every minute that I wasn’t scheduled to be somewhere.

So when I did get home, I was not quite done the second sock…just a few repeats short of the toe. And I felt so crappy that it took me a couple of more evenings to finish them off.

So now, I have lovely new spring socks. And if you’ve ever encountered spring in Newfoundland, you know that they are likely to be worn at least a few times before they are put away for the season.