Dyeing disasters

So what do you do when you find two lovely gorgeous coordinating colours of a blend that you haven't tried before? Well, if you're me - you decide you want a three ply, and wouldn't a lovely orangey peachey colour look nice with the pinks? Yeah right!

I totally screwed it up. Totally not knittable in it's current state - nothing I could ever wear. Man, it was bad. I'm pretty pissed off with myself - I mean I plied the whole thing. Three full Joy bobbins plied together. Took me hours. And I just kept going. Part of that was because I was curious about how many Joy bobbins I can fit onto one Skipper bobbin - but doh! Not to mention that the plying is not my best ever - For some reason the Skipper was just clattering along in a very annoying fashion - I'm hoping it's just that one bobbin.

Only one thing to do really at this point, and that's overdye. I did that after I got home from work tonight. Just threw a bunch of red into a big bowl and threw it in the nukerwave. This skein probably weighs about 10ozs is the good news. And now it's just basically red - so that's good - but those colours that I started off with? The first two that I bought at Lambtown I am mourning them, and kicking myself a bit. Don't get me wrong - usually when I'm dyeing I'm not going for any particular effect - color is good. I like color - I like to mix colors up - I really have fun with it. I think a lot of my problem is that I'm not used to playing with "real" dyes - and I overdid it big time. No pictures of the overdyed version yet - it's drying.


I had a hellatious day at work on Friday, and I did something that I haven't done in so long - I just can't even remember the last time it happened. I stopped off at Borders on my way home - picked up a book (Phantom by Terry Goodkind), got home and took to my bed. My son is off camping with my family, and my boyfriend was down in Southern California - so I had no interruptions - nobody wondering what was for dinner, asking me questions, talking to me, nothing - no distractions of any kind. I dove headfirst into that book, totally escaped from my own reality. I read a lot and knit a little on my Azalea shawl, finished the book Saturday in the early afternoon. .

I emerged from my book and cleaned the house - did all the laundry - mopped floors, scrubbed toilets - the whole cha cha. Boy it felt good to get all that done! I haven't been home much lately, and I just haven't gotten to all the deep cleaning stuff in too long. Clean sheets, less muck, whew.

I haven't spent an entire weekend at home in a long long time - I really needed that.

Saturday night the BBE called and asked if he could bring anything - I said sure! Dinner. He did good. I didn't want to mess up my nice clean kitchen and I was tired. It was just a take and bake pizza and a couple of premade salads, but hey, I didn't have to cook and mess up my nice clean kitchen so it was good.

Sunday I spun the whole bobbin of the orange merino tencel from hell, and plied it together into the wrongness I pictured above. Yep - I'm still kicking myself.... Oh well, live and learn.

Tonight I went home to do some dyeing. I wasn't even planning on overdyeing the orange yuck, but I got one look at it in natural light - and just knew. What I was planning on doing was taking lots of pictures and dyeing up the Optim, the rest of the merino tencel, and myabe some silk. Well - I dyed all of those and I found some BFL to dye, lots more silk, some other mystery wool and some superwash merino. I think I probably ended up dyeing 4 pounds of fiber.

I fully intended to take copious amounts of photos of all the different steps that I did and show some kind of tutorial - but wow - is that hard! I really have to wait until my daughter is around or something. I love taking pictures, but having to stop where I'm at and take pictures in the middle of dyeing silk and optim blues and greens, or some bfl blues and greens and pinks - wearing latex gloves? I honestly think that it's just something that isn't possible for me. I did pretty well up until the point where I actually started dyeing.

There's a picture of the vinegar that I used.

A picture of the bowl that I poured the red dye into before I overdyed the assault to my retinas. Pictures after? Well, I already said it's drying and it's dark outside - I will get some pics - good ones (hopefully) after it's all dryed.

There's a pic of a stainless steel bowl that I poured the green dye into.

There's a pic of the Merino/Tencel waiting to have dye poured on it.

After that? Nada - nothing - no enchilada.

Also there's absolutely no guarantee that I will be able to identify which fibers are which. There was one that started off as a mystery - but I can't remember what colour I dyed the superwash merino - that could be interesting! I think it's the really dark red/blue/green.... Better try to do a felting test I guess.

So the good news - I'll have lots of fun fibers to spin up. Photo ops galore. No more retina assaulting orangeness. And the fun of trying to figure out which fibers are which. Sigh - I need a photographer - and a stunt knitter would be kinda nice too!

The Azalea shawl is 10 repeats in - no new pics, sorry - but it's coming along nicely! I'm firmly into the blue, getting closer into green, and FO-ness. Still loving the flow of the pattern, and no bumps in that particular road.

Just a tiny butterfly on the flowers by my work