one dye pot, originally uploaded by cosymakes.
yesterday i spent A LOT of time knitting on the blue stole. i’m hoping to be done within the next few days. while i was knitting on the stole, i also decided to overdye these two skeins of handspun i spun from this roving.
i am one of those people who hates throwing dye down the drain… so in overdyeing two skeins, i accidently embarked on a little dyeing day that used one pot and lots of wool. here’s what the pot looked like in the beginning, and here’s the rundown:
1 – bright blue, overdyed handspun. i took the less green skein of handspun and overdyed it with navy. it was cooking for about 45 min.
2 – red… over the more green handspun. the green was way too neon for me and i felt that i needed to counteract that a bit. so i added red. who knew these skeins could still suck up a lot of dye?
3 – recycled sweater wool. without looking at it in a glass jar, the dye water looked purple (it was actually more blue) so i added some orange (probably mostly yellow). so i started getting a green and added other colors to try to get a non-neon shade. it’s very rich.
4 – wool, thrifted in ball form. this is the brown you get from green and red. i (obviously) added the red to mute the green a bit and went too far. i love it though. i didn’t leave it in that long because it was getting lovely green and red sections that would have meshed into one brown if i left it in.
5 – middle green, new irish tweed wool. i was going for a sort of teal color here, so i added blue and green. it’s actually a deep rich green color like the first two, i just couldn’t get a good photo.
6 – recycled sweater wool. just dipped this one in for a short period of time. i didn’t want it to get too dark. no color added.
7 – recycled sweater wool/angora/nylon blend. must have added some green again. probably olive.
8 – recycled sweater wool. added a bit more turquoise. dyed with a bit of domestic wool top.
9 – end of dye bath attempt to exhaust. didn’t work all that well. i wonder if all of the vinegar had boiled off. generally speaking if you get left with anything using these dyes, it’s the blues.
now i can’t wait to get back to working on the book because i can use some of the dyeing i’ve been doing. it kills me to leave these for this long! along the same lines, of course i’ve been spinning since i dyed all of that wool top. why do i tempt myself?
