On The Good Ship Lollipop

Remember the rainbow yarn I dyed in mason jars in my pressure canner?

 

Well, with my new addiction to the giant hounds tooth pattern, I decided to give this yarn a try.  I figured it would probably work out, but if it was an epic disaster, it at least has super softness on its side.... And if all else failed, I was pretty sure my dad would accept it as a gift and at least hide it sight unseen under his jacket on his cold morning walks.  So, I figured I had nothing to lose!

Up close, it's a little confusing of a pattern and doesn't stand out real well.

 But from a distance, it looks really cool!

This was raw wool that came from eastern Washington state.  We checked it in our suitcase when we flew back to Arizona and we ended up with an inspection that trip!  I'm sure that the drug dogs found it because it smells so animal-like, and then I'm sure the TSA wondered what the heck was wrong with this passenger!  And our luggage smelled like a farm animal for a little while after.  It was super dirty, even though I washed it many times.  Finally, in this last wash it came out white.  Really white!  Like snow white!  There's a few bits of grass that's stuck here and there, but the more I work with it, the more that falls out.

  And it's SOOO soft! 

It's harder to see the hounds tooth pattern in this scarf, but it's still very pretty in its own way and also so colorful!  But most of all, I love how soft it is.

So much fun!!!

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!