Friday, January 06, 2006

Fanciful Fruity Yarn!


Mmmm! Yarn! In all its fruity glory! For details on the dye process, read here. It took several days to dry after dripping dry in the bathroom over the tub....the fruity smell is still there, though it is less noticeable (either that or I've simply become accustomed to it). Each hank is eight ounces of what used to be boring natural colored Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool. I like it much better this way in it's newly transformed fruity form.

Here you can see it as a wall of yarn, fresh out of the dyepot and newly rinsed and pressed dry on a towel. Don't worry, I did spread it out after the photo was taken to try to encourage a more speedy drying. Even with the addition of food coloring and extra KoolAid packets, the yarn soaked up all the dye, as I noticed no dye bleed during the rinsing process, nor was my tub colored as the yarn drip dried. Unfortunately the Blues and Purples batch did not come out fully saturated and may be in need of an overdye.

While the Wall of Yarn was quite beautiful with its tie-dyed funky appearance, I greatly prefer how it looks re-skeined into smaller swift-friendly size - even though rewinding it took a long time (to dye the yarn, I wound it up on a huge niddy noddy). I'll probably leave them as they are until I'm ready to knit with them, at which point I'll bring out the swift and ballwinder.

I think I'm in love with dying, though next time, I'm going to use proper (non KoolAid) dyes, and I'll have to make a day of it and see if I can completely fill the pot!

3 comments:

Brooklyn Handspun said...

Ah ha! I knew you'd love it - and with the vibrant colors of proper dyes you'll love it even more.

Parisknits said...

Ok, your knitted animals are just wonderful

Stevie said...

Those colors are FABULOUS! I used to not really be interested in dying yarn, but you may have changed my mind...