It’s a quiet, grey day here in Guelph. It hasn’t rained yet this morning, but it’s coming soon.

It’s been a couple busy weeks since the last post.

I’ve finished my spinning certificate class and had a blast with it. Last week was spent getting my homework in order and working on a commissioned pattern. That  pattern is coming along very nicely. I just have a few tweaks left and then it’s off to the test knitter this Friday. I’ll be getting the yarn for the pattern sample soon and I’m really excited to start working with it. It’s a new yarn to me and looks and feels amazing.

I thought I would post some pictures of the dye experiments we did in my spinning class. This year was dyeing with fibre reactive dyes and creative dyeing techniques. These were all a blast to do, but it got pretty hectic having twenty people all dyeing at the same time. We managed and thankfully no spills or accidents.

All these samples will be mounted and written up as part of our dyeing homework for the class.

Painted knitted blanks, dyed with Koolaid. The yarn is Jamieson & Smith’s Shetland Supreme in white. Knitted on 3mm needles.

The blanks were soaked for 30 minutes in water with vinegar and a bit of dish soap, then wrung out so they were damp. They were laid out on plastic wrap. I sprinkled the Koolaid powder directly on top of the blanks and massaged it into the yarn. I then wrapped them up in the plastic wrap and laid them out in the bright sun on a metal surface for about three hours. They were left overnight to cool and rinsed in the morning.

For our homework the blanks are to be re-knit to show how that changes the way things look in the final project. I’m going to re-knit these as small sample socks on 2.25 or 2.5mm needles, probably 36 or 40 stitches around.
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Top – 50% wool, 50% silk, dyed with Greener Shades dyes.

This was dyed using a crammed pot method. I soaked the fibre in a mason jar in hot water with vinegar for 30 minutes and then drained off most of the water. I mixed three colours of dyes – red violet, blue violet and gold. I poured each dye directly on top of the fibre in roughly thirds, trying not to overlap them. I covered the jar and left it outside in the sun with the knitted blanks, let it cool overnight and rinsed it in the morning.

There was a lot of white in the fibre, but I think this will spin up nicely. For homework I’ll need a sample skein and a small swatch made from more yarn.

Yarn dyed as a ball wound on a ball winder. Dyed in Greener Shades dyes.

The yarn is a worsted weight wool and mohair blend. It was loosely wound into a centre pull ball. I soaked it in warm water, vinegar and a bit of soap for thirty or forty minutes. I then gently squeezed out most of the water.

I filled the dye pot so the water level was just over half the height of the yarn ball. I added the first dye, brought it up to a simmer, added the yarn ball and dyed half of the ball, the did the other side of the ball in the same way. First colour was red-orange, the second was gold. The outsides of the ball took the dye stronger than the inside, which has paler colours. The inside also has shorter colour streaks then the outside.

For the assignment I have to mount a sample skein and swatch of this yarn. I think I’m going to do two samples of each – one to show the inside of the ball and one the outside of the ball. It will be interesting to see the differences beside each other.