What do knitters do when they want to play with fibre but really don’t feel like knitting? I am primarily a knitter, but I can sew, but that isn’t quite the same is it? And I have dabbled at hand-dying yarns and hand-painting my knitting with dyes, two very different approaches to adding dye to your knitting. I love them both.
Hand-dying yarns is much faster to do, but takes longer to get to the finished product. Hand-painting your knitting with dyes gets you a finished product quite quickly, as you have already done the knitting! However painting your knitting takes longer to do than painting your yarn. For a quick fix – I like to paint my yarn!
Two years ago I started to play at dying with Darlene – my co-worker and friend. She is an old hand at it and basically held my hand as I learned the in’s and outs. We worked with Wilton Cake Dyes – non-toxic – bright colours – inexpensive to play with and a hole lot of fun! Take a minute and google dyeing with Wilton Food Dyes – there are lots of great how-to instructions!
We painted a sock blank and then we painted some hanks of yarn. I had some fine alpaca laceweight and then some fingering weight non-superwash merino, a good basic worsted wool and some mohair/silk blend yarn. Darlene had a similar collection.
We had a ball!
Why am I thinking about this now? Well, now that covid restrictions have been loosened, we are thinking of doing it again! Maybe with more traditional acid dyes this time! I will have to start collecting some undyed yarns to play with – stash diving here I come!
I have already made a bit of a start – I do have a fairly extensive collection of undyed yarns – always thinking that I would do more knitting and then painting – there is never enough time in the year or all of my ideas! What do you think?
Last time the alpaca went from undyed to Wow! I think that this time I will go for a more subdued sultry kind of vibe, reds with black and gold highlights maybe – or maybe not – dyeing is not a precise craft when you are learning – but we must have goals. I will need to wind off a couple of 100 gr hanks first though!
I have about 1500 yds of the brushed cashmere and silk, I will need to wind those as well! I am really curious to see how this takes the dyes. Cashmere is usually a little subdued when dyed, but silk takes the dye vividly and glows. The combination is intriguing. I know the Mohair and silk, Maidenhair from Handmaiden will be gorgeous. I have painted this one in knitting many times! But I have never dyed it in the skein before. A good start don’t you think? What else should I try? Any suggestions?
Well back to my knitting and it is also time for tea. I am going to try a new (to me) tea, It is Whittard # 12, English Rose flavoured black tea. I bought it this morning and when I opened the cannister! Isn’t it beautiful? I hope it tastes as good as it looks! The aroma is that of old fashioned blooming Summer Roses!
Be well and knit Happy!
Lynette
PS – below is the hand-dyed version of the Celebration Shawl
