yarnsketti

fiber arts n stuff

[yarnsketti]

I haven't weaved in the ends, but I'm addicted to knitting those dish cloths and I finally sewed them together into a baby blanket. I kinda accidentally ended up with seams on both sides, buuut.. I cant be bothered to fix it lol. Next time I'll bite the bullet and crochet them all together.

[yarnsketti]

I knooow these are the simplest projects in the world but these cotton dishcloths what I've been knitting up lately! The yarn was given to me by a friend, and I made these for different friend for her Montessori classroom. The pass-it-on vibes give me life.

Anyway if you're interested in the pattern, its:

Cast on 4

Row 1: k4

Rows after that: k1, y/o, k to end

Once you have 40 stitches, begin decreasing

K1, k2tog, y/o, k2tog, k to end

When you have 4 stitches left, cast off and weave in your ends! It's painfully simple but I LOVE working such small, easy projects. I'm currently making a blanket in the same pattern in varying worsted acrylics. I should also mention this was not my original pattern--I found it on Ravelry and of course I didn't save the source on it, so :/

[yarnsketti]

Final results of yarn dyeing with burgundy! This picture doesn't capture the actual color that well; the cotton is a mottled grayish-lavender, and the superwash is a mocha mulberry. They're really pretty, they just don't look like the photo.

[yarnsketti]

This week's dyeing experiment: (cheap) burgundy wine as dye! I used one skein superwash wool and one skein of 100% cotton. It was an interesting experiment, because plant fibers dye with time and protein fibers (ie, wool) dye with heat. This process shows it really clearly--there was 1hr of simmering between photos 1&2 and it doesn't affect the cotton AT ALL, and a 24hr soaking difference between photos 2&3 which doesn't change the wool fibers AT ALL.

To recreate either of these, this is what I'd recommend (ie do as I say, not as I did):

For the WOOL: rinse your superwash wool under cold tap water until wetted thoroughly, place in your dyepot, cover with red wine, bring up to a simmer & maintain that simmer for 1hr

For COTTON: soak cotton fiber for 1 hr prior to dyeing with about a tbs of sodium carbonate, rinse, then put in a quart sized mason jar and cover with wine. Let sit for 24hrs.

In either case, you definitely want to wash your yarn with soap before hanging to dry, as wine has sugar and whatnot that will attract bugs or break down the yarn. I use dish soap.

As far as wine, I used about 2L of Carlo Rossi burgundy, not because I drink it but because I also wanted the bottle so I could brew perry in it (pear cider, it's a historic thing and i get nerdy for historic stuff lol). Any red should work, but a cabernet sauvignon or the more full-bodied, extra-tannined reds would probably work best (I'm hypothesizing, but).

Sooo yeah! Wine yarn!

[yarnsketti]

Onion skin dye results! The super white fabric is a cotton control group. I managed to tint some linen (top) and cotton (bottom) out of the same dyebath-- which is shocking, because I didn't use a mordant or follow proper plant-fiber dyeing technique AT ALL. I'm honestly fascinated with how the same dye (which was literally just boiled onion skins???) created such wildly different colors.

[yarnsketti]

Onion Skin Dye Experiment, One.

The yarn is still drying, I'll make a separate post with the final color. But:

Simmered 1 big bag of mixed red&yellow onion skins for half an hour. Let cool to room temp (helped by ice cubes). Ran 2 skiens of 100% merino superwash under tap water, added to dye bath. I twisted one back into a skein and then twisted the skein onto itself again to create a varigated pattern. I simmered the yarn for 1hr, and then let it sit to room temp. Then i unwound the twisted skein, washed both skeins in the sink, and hung them to dry. I absolutely love this color and will definitely be doing it again.

[yarnsketti]

Tea dyeing Experiment One.

-simmered 1 sample of adagio cinnamon tea (minus two tsp because I made a cup of tea) for 1hr, covered

-let cool to room temp

-soaked 1 skein of knitpicks swish worsted in tap water, added it to the dye bath

-simmered 20 or 30 minutes, let it soak until it was back to room temp

-hung it in the shower to dry (yes i forgot to wash it, i know, I'm a bad dyer), waited like 3 days, wrapped it in a skein.

-jury's out on if the cinnamon will be a transient color or not, we'll see.