A rainy day dye day

I have had this thought stuck in my head for awhile, and I finally decided to try it.  My thought was a new way to dye yarn.  

I started with measuring out 14 yards of hand-spun white wool on my warp board:

 

 This wool was straight from a sheep in eastern Washington State!  It was really soft, but still had debris in it.  Because of the debris that remained in it, I set it aside as rug wool.  In other words, it is ok if this project doesn't turn out!  It's great practice stuff.

I had the rainbow of Wilton's food coloring dyes, which I might point out are food safe.  (This is important in the next step!)

 And I filled up my pressure canner with 7 quart-sized jars.  I added a little dash of vinegar to each one.

Then added the rainbow of dyes, one to each jar.  I had 7 jars, so there are 2 shades of blue, a dark and a light one, plus all the other colors of the rainbow.

The hardest part was estimating how much yarn to put into each jar!  I ended up not putting enough in at first, so when I got to purple, there was a lot left over.  So, I just put a little bit in red, orange, and yellow again!  It's just for practice, anyway!  Next time, I'm going to put some yarn markers on the wool while it's on the warp board.  For example, if I had 14 warped yards and 7 colors, I'm going to mark every 2 yards with a little piece of yarn.  that way, I will know how much goes into each jar.

I wasn't too careful with the Wilton's food coloring, and dyed my hand a few different rainbow shades!  It's going to be a few days before it will wear off!

Over high heat, I raised the temperature until the water was simmering, not quite boiling, then I turned off the heat, put on the lid, and let it sit for a few hours to cool.  This is what it looked like after the dyes had a chance to wick up some dye in the white parts and then set! 

This all ended up being the perfect rainy day activity!  

We made our own rainbows inside with the Wilton's dyes!

And now, here are the results of my dyeing experiment:
 It's so colorful!

 

 This is going to be so much fun!!

The stripes are going to be long and I love the sections that fade to the next color!  I didn't get that when I spun already dyed wool, like before.





After the rainbows, I decided to do a dye bath of yellow-green, green, green-blue, and blue.  It was wound into a 2 yard skein, so the color changes are kind of short, not like the rainbow 14-yard warp.  I imagine it being a pretty little scarf mixed with the other white skeins, which are super white now because I washed them really well and shook out a lot of the debris.  I think more will fall out as I work with it on the loom and then wear the scarf.

I feel so excited to re-discover this wool!  It feels cool to find lost things in your stash!  

Now I need to weave up these dyed wool skeins so I can see which ones I like better, the longer stripes or the shorter stripes.

Dyeing with Kool-aid

Back in the summer of 2007 (which is shortly after I got my spinning wheel), I started playing around with kool-aid and wool.  I decided to try dyeing wool with kool-aid because it's non-toxic, it smells good, and you can easily do it in your microwave only using water, vinegar, and of course kool-aid or food coloring!!!  It's so simple, and it would be a fun project to do with kids.  All you want to keep in mind is this: Don't change temperatures on the wool too suddenly or else it will felt.  You always want to slowly heat it up and slowly cool it down.

How to Dye Wool With Kool-aid

1.  Fill a microwave safe bowl with cold water, a splash of vinegar, kool-aide or food coloring.  

2.  Add the wool slowly.  I sometimes push it down with a spoon so I don't dye my fingers!

3.  Microwave in 2-3 minute intervals.  I usually have 3-4 bowls going at one time in order to give the wool "rest time" in-between each cycle.

4.  When the wool is steamy, it's probably done absorbing all the dye it can.  In fact, if you walk away from it for about 30 minutes, it will cool off and usually absorb the last of the kool-aid.

5.  When it's cool, rinse in cool water and dry.  Then you can have fun spinning!

 Some of the fun from 2007:

 

I think, "the more color, the merrier."  But that's just me!

 

This looks like either 3 or 4-ply yarn, but I can't remember.  

It's certainly thick, chunky, and perfect for knitting!

I was a knitter then and had not even considered weaving yet!

I've had the last week off from school and it's been fun to finish canning our MANY apples (we ended up with 400 lbs this year!) and work on my spinning wheel.  I have been so distracted by my loom recently that it's been fun to rediscover my spinning wheel again.  And now that I'm so busy with my wheel, I haven't actually had time yet to put on a new warp on my loom!  (I hope they don't fight like jealous siblings when I'm not looking!) 

2011 kool-aid/food coloring dyeing:

Some of these bowls are wool dyed with kool-aid...

and some are dyed with that thick Wilton's frosting dye that comes in a paste.

But the regular droplets of food coloring would work, too.

It's almost magical when the water becomes clear again!

Hope you get a chance to try this out yourself!

Old Wool

I was going through some old wool that was given to me and I came across these faded skeins.  I decided to over-dye it so that it can actually be useful for something.  I don't know if the faded areas are extra fragile or not, but I am willing to use it in at least a rug.

I like the way the dyeing turned out.  I used kiwi color dye, and it's blotchy because of those whitish areas, but I do like it!  It will weave up nicely!  Plus, it was free, so I really can't complain!

I'll set the green stuff aside until it dries, but I'll use it in my next project.  I need to get some of this stash used up!  I have a lot of this wool.

I used up some of this wool before in my blue and white rug back in June:

I have been eying this old wool as a warp, even though it is a bit on the brittle side.  I decided to take a chance and weave a shawl... but the plan is to be gentle with it!  This warp is 3 yards long, which is about 1/2 yard longer than Brian's man-shawl.  We have decided that 2.5 yards for a shawl is just a bit on the skimpy side.  This one should be perfect...

 

I especially like the colors... the dark blue mixed with the lighter blue.  At first I wasn't sure there would be enough contrast, but it is just perfect!  And so much more relaxing than my last few projects!

 
I was going to do just a scarf, kind of like those acrylic scarves from a few months ago, the ones with the huge motifs... but I really wanted a shawl or wrap instead.  So far, this project is going really fast because the sett is 8 ends per inch.  I had it threaded in less than 45 minutes!

When it comes off the loom, I am going to ever so slightly felt it in the sink by shocking the fibers with hot and cold water, just to make it a bit thicker.... which also might increase the strength of it, if it is brittle.  So far, I haven't had a problem with it.  This shawl is going to be so warm for the winter!

 

I wish I had a loom big enough to do a blanket in a solid piece.

Maybe someday!

 Oh, and PS.  My loom is weaving up SUPER straight now!  Yay!!  I am about half way done with this shawl already and it's not at all crooked!  In fact, this is the straightest I've ever woven with this loom... ever!!

A preview!

Thing has been non-stop busy here since the publishing of my book!  I haven't had time to write a review of my own book and share some pictures!  But alas, here are a few things from inside!!!

I always love seeing the table of contents for books before I buy them, so for those of you who also love table of contents, here you go!

By this last page, you can see that I have tried to put in as many inspiring pictures from my collection that I could!  I love inspiring art, especially when it has to do with weaving!




The main focus of this book is designing your own miniature overshot patterns like Bertha Gray Hayes.  I have an entire tutorial on how to design them using profile drafts, because it makes a very quick job of it!  You can actually plop out a few drafts in just a few minutes once you realize how simple profile drafting can be!  I put my teacher skills to the test and created a workbook section that you can print and work through, and then print again and work through it a second time instead of worrying about marking up your own book!  Here is a sample page:

One section includes how to draft by hand, instead of using the computer all of the time.  Here is a sample of that section:

I also work through how to find the back of your draft, different tie-ups, name drafting, and the challenges and benefits of converting to summer and winter, with samples!!  The great thing about drafting profile drafts is that you can easily convert them to other things, like summer and winter.  Here is a summer and winter sample of Lego:

I was asked the other day if my book was for 4-shafts or mostly 8-shafts, and you 4-shaft weavers are in great luck... it's actually most 4-shafts!  Although some of the drafting for summer and winter is for the larger looms like 8-shaft, there is a very special section for you with 4-shafts!!!  (See table of contents pg 171!)



There is a section with over 20 of my own drafts that I made using profile drafting.  I included a segment of the profile draft, a repeated front and back so you can see what a bigger picture looks like, the overshot front and back drafts, a woven sample of each, and then either some variations on the same theme or an idea of what to do with the draft.  Here are 2 sample page from Lego:

 

I definitely wove up plenty of samples for my notebook section!  In fact, it was so huge that I couldn't download it in one piece!  I had to split this one into two, that's how many pictures there are!!!

The book wraps up with hound's tooth projects, how to dye using mason jars and wilton's food dye, how to make a journal cover...

... how to use up your scraps making a fabric book....

... how to sew a sock-less sock monkey...























... some rugs...

 
... And an entire section on card weaving, including how to make your own cards out of cereal boxes, your own loom out of wood, etc.!!

 

Honestly I feel like I wrote my heart and soul into this book, and it's full of really great information!  The only complaint that I've heard so far is that it is not currently for sale in a printed version.  I chose to do the pdf format so that you can print off the sections you want, or like in the workbook style you can print and write on them, and then print a fresh copy again!  However, I haven't heard any other complaints than that so far!!  Many people are saying it's a great book and written really well.  One person told me that it has so much information in it that I could have charged twice as much!

Get your copy today and enjoy!!!

I picked out a name!

Seven years ago when we found our orange kitty Zip, we had to make the hard decision of whether or not to keep him.  We were living in a very tiny apartment and my husband is allergic to cats!  Brian got worried when I named him because he realized that we couldn't get rid of him once we named him.  And I knew that, so I picked out a name while standing in line at the pet store buying supplies!!  I love looking back at Zip's baby pictures.  These are from April 2006.  I'm glad we decided to keep him!

His eyes were so orange when he was younger.  They've faded now that he's older.

Now I've picked out a name for my sheep.  But this is a good sign, it means I like it, and I want to keep it!  I want to stick to names with "wool" in it, but sounds like a real name of some sort.  So, I came up with Woolton, almost like the The Waltons or Wilton's food dye.  And then I like the name Wilma, because it doesn't remind me of any of the 1,350 students I've had throughout the years.  But if I change it to Woolma, it sounds cute, sounds like Wilma, it has wool in the name, and it has "ma" in the name so it can also be a mama sheep!  If she has a baby, I want to name it Woolite because it implies that it's small and light!  And then there's the whole wool washing soap called Woolite... just plain cute!

We're making progress!