Putting a Spin on Things: Irish Mist Stole

I know its been a while since I’ve posted anything. All that blending takes time, and since I started this blog, I’ve had to go back to work. I am very thankful that I have a job in this day and age, don’t get me wrong, but it does cut into my fiber work *g*

In between all that carding, I got it in my head that I wanted to make a vest for myself. Found the perfect pattern that was all very sleek and modern. I went out with a good friend of mine (hiya Chris!) and we spent a day looking for the perfect yarn. We looked here, we looked there, we looked high and we looked low. Saw many beautiful yarns that would have made up wonderfully into the vest, but I had my heart set on the color rust.

I’m sure that many of you realize that colors come and go in popularity, and rust is just not popular right now. I found cinnamon, pumpkin, gourde, fall fiesta, tan, orange, spice, and more too numerous to name. However, none of them was rust. Chris and I even went to Manning’s, in New Berlin. In my mind, if it is not at Manning’s, it doesn’t exist. They had no rust. I was heartbroken and was seriously thinking of doing it in another color. I was looking around, looking for a good alternative, when I came across several baskets of spun yarn that had not been dyed, any way shape or form. It was then when it hit me. I know how to dye yarn. I’ll dye it rust! Happy Day!

In for a penny, in for a pound seems to be my way of life. I found some rust dye (I like Cushing’s), but solid rust would be too boring. I also picked up some dark brown, old gold, olive green and crimson. I then spent the next couple of days dying my yarn purchase. To make a long story short, I did not make the vest. It turns out the pattern was hard to make the right size, plus Chris and I realized that from the back, the vest had this awful way of framing your butt. We laughed and called it a butt window and believe me, it wasn’t pretty. We looked around of something else to make with our yarn and I came across this lovely pattern for a shawl/stole done in filet crochet.

Dying yarn or fiber of any kind can be done in many different ways. Here is a video describing one method of dying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfAW3w8o2tc&NR=1

I used a method very similar to the one in the video, but I use liquid dye, not powder dye. Well the dye starts as a powder, but I dissolve mine in water before I use it. It’s a personal choice. *g*

So here are my materials all set out to start the dying.

The baster is used to put the dye where I would like it and the tongs are used to remove the skeins of yarn. After being in boiling water, those babies are HOT!

To give you an idea of the colors, here is a paper towel with the dye on it. The colors will not be exactly the same, but close enough.

To start, I set my dye pots on the stove filled with water and vinegar and get them to boiling. I bought 2 large skeins of yarn. To make the dye adhere more evenly, I divided each large skein into two smaller skeins. I could then put 2 skeins in each dye pot. So what I have now are two pots of boiling water with 2 skeins each ready to go. It smells a lot like Easter time, what with the boiling water and vinegar *g*

Here are the skeins in the pots. The yellow yarn is used to tie the skeins. Loose yarn in a pot of boiling water is not a good thing.

I could not hold the camera and put the dye where I wanted it, so I only have pics of the yarn after the dye has been added. But I think you get a good idea of how it goes.

The steam can be impressive.

Showing the true colors is also hard for me. I have a picture that is a little too dark and one that is a little too light. The true colors are somewhere in between. *g*

As soon as the water has no more color in it, (the dye having been absorbed by the yarn) I drain the water, rinse the skeins in cold water and hang them up to dry. I hung them on the fence thinking there would be good air circulation there. Mistake.

The dog was there too and it didn’t take her more than 2 minutes to decide that those beautiful, wet, hanging skeins were a major threat to our way of life and she proceeded to destroy them. Fortunately, her idea of destruction was to pull them off the fence and get them covered with leaves and other debris. When she discovered that they were not edible, she left them alone. That took her 2 minutes. It took me 2 days to clean all the junk off, *g*.