Red-y or not here it comes
Thursday April 07th 2016, 10:32 pm
Filed under: Family,To dye for

From Colourmart‘s recent big mill-ends-of-the-mill-ends sale.

The cone, a vivid red on the orangey side, became this (first photo) yesterday and then this (second and third photos) today.

My problem was in not owning a dyepot big enough, if one exists, to allow 650 g of dk cashmere to float around in freely to let all the dye sift equally through everything; those three hanks I’d wound up barely all fit in there with the water at half full. And it was a big pot. (Side note: surely there are people who can hold up an increasingly heavy niddy noddy long enough to wind two thousand-plus yards onto it to make a single hank out of that much yarn; I am not one of them. I had to take breaks.)

I looked at my skeins, snapped a photo, and got my daughter’s opinion. There was a lot of difference between the skeins and within the skeins, mocking my efforts to immerse them together. “Artistic,” I told her.

Honestly, still pretty bright.

No problem. Easier to add than subtract. I repeated the process today, putting in first that which had taken up the least.

Not perfect but a lot better and a lot more even.

 

Note that I bought that second cone in case it turned out not quite what she was hoping for.

My daughter is knitting. And I had a chance to give her cashmere. All it needed was some prep work.


2 Comments so far
Leave a comment

I am going to have to start watching Colourmart for their sales. Not that I need yarn, you understand. But just for the .. um .. education? Yeah, education, that’s it!

There are people who can hold niddy-noddy’s for the length of time it takes to wind however much you need – they are generally of the male persuasion and often over 6 feet tall. Seen anything like that in your neighbourhood lately? Bet’cha have, bet a hazelnut torte would come in handy too.

Chris S in Canada

Comment by Chris S 04.08.16 @ 3:56 pm

I like that as the original and as each step along the way. I guess I really just like most reds unless they are very orange, which turns my skin a bit yellow.

I used to be able to wear orange. In the 70’s I made a dress out of a wool crepe (I think it was) that I wore for teaching college. It was a favorite dress, too. I think it’s in the basement closet awaiting a decision on what to do with it, along with the others I sewed from Vogue, Butterick, etc., patterns. I used rather nice wool fabrics from the Stevens factory shop in most cases. Sigh. Know a theatre group that would use them for costumes, maybe? I’ll have to ask around.

Comment by Susan (sjanova) 04.08.16 @ 5:30 pm



Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)