Colour My World

Well, yesterday was definitely a good day to dye! And it took me nearly all day too. First up we have the On Your Toes bamboo/nylon sock yarn (that will not be socks!):

And I got the deep warm red that I wanted with Procion MX fibre reactive dyes. I used quite a deep percentage – 3.5% of the 200g WOF: 3g of some old Scarlet, 2g of Carmine (a colour I can’t get locally anymore but it’s a fairly true red), 1g of new Scarlet (a different dye from the old one), .5g Black and .5g Gold Yellow = 7g total. It might have been overkill but I was determined to get a rich colour. The nylon seems to have taken the dye at least somewhat and the yarn held up very well to all the stirring and rinsing/simmering/rinsing. This is going to be my Ishbel scarf & tam.

Next I dyed the Papyrine wrap. I pre-soaked it in 2 litres of water with 2 tbsp of soda ash for half an hour (while I got the bamboo yarn going). Then I covered my long work table with plastic wrap and spread out the wrap. It just fit with the leaves and roots hanging off the edge! I mixed up the dyes without measuring very carefully, each about 1/2 tsp in 1/2 cup of water. I used Chino (from ProChem) and Rust, Brown and Moss (proprietary mixes from Maiwa). I painted the dye on with sponge brushes and then wrapped it up using more plastic wrap, popped it in a bucket in case of drips and put it under the grow lights for heat. I left it for a couple of hours and then rinsed, cold water first and then warmer. It didn’t take too many changes of water to run clear.

I blocked it with my new blocking wires on the rubber mats. That worked quite well though I had to be careful not to tear the paper when threading the wire through the tips of the leaves. After I got it all pinned out to my satisfaction I noticed:

Yes, that is indeed a hole! Right in the middle. Sigh. I plan to fix it with some dyed paper yarn cannibalised from my earlier swatch (luckily I used the same dyes!) and a little glue to prevent it from coming apart again. I also had a couple of ends that escaped to be rethreaded back in. Otherwise I’m pretty happy with it.

I haven’t yet rescued it from its blocking wires so you’ll have to forgive the crappy photos, with (gasp!) flash. I can’t get the whole thing stretched out in one shot. The detail is the more accurate colour BTW.

So then I had a bunch of dye leftovers and I don’t like to waste it. I didn’t have anything else of a cellulose nature to be dyed so I quickly wound 5 balls of white Smart superwash DK into skeins and used the Procion like an acid dye. Mixing all the leftovers together I got the colour of brown hair (not too exciting) so I added some red dyestock I had (more leftovers) and got a rich red-brown:

This yarn will become a sweater for Stargazer for his 2.5 birthday in June. Yes, he still has half-birthdays because of his real birthday’s proximity to Christmas and New Years. So far he’s not old enough to discover this ruse. We’ll see how long it lasts, won’t we?

All in all I dyed nearly a pound of fibre and pretty much got the colours I was after. Then I went outside and dug in the front garden some more.