Driving to dye

Check out Janna’s cat Simon in his brand new bib!

On Saturday, Deb of Wound Too Tight invited Jeanne and I out to the far western suburbs to dye a lot of yarn, drink wine, chat, and eat yummy food. Jeanne has created the official photographic record, since I only remembered to pull my camera out once… Yes, she even got a few pictures of me – in one of which, I swear you can see down my shirt to my belly button (I’m an innie, thanks for asking). 🙂 Neither of us managed to get a picture of Deb’s daughter, Kathryn, who kept us on track by alerting us when the yarn in the microwave was done.

Here are the Country Classics dyes, ready to go and with color card at the ready. (Please note that the fountain was not part of the dyeing process.)

The load of stuff that Jeanne and I brought to fill up Deb’s sunporch.

Jeanne hangs out with Holly, who at the time had not displayed her fondness for licking hot dyed wool.

Deb niddy noddies up a storm, getting her yarn ready to dye.

Here’s the yarn I dyed, drying on my drying rack. From left, Ashford Tekapo dyed with Lialc and diluted Raven, KnitPicks Dye Your Own sock yarn dyed with Very Hot Pink and Raven, some ancient Lion Brand worsted wool dyed with Cornflower, a ball of ancient Bear Brand worsted wool dyed with Spring Violet and Cornflower (dyed by sticking the ball into a cup of leftover dye, then flipping it over and sticking it into another cup of leftover dye), and another ball of the Bear Brand dyed the same way but with leftover Very Hot Pink.

Here are the same yarns (excluding the skein of Tekapo Lilac and Raven, which is still drying) in roughly the opposite order as above after they’ve been reskeined. Much nicer!

Deb surprised us with gift bags!

“I’m not sure I’ve had this color of tissue paper before. I will have to do a taste comparison.”

She gifted me with two stunning skeins of Alchemy Haiku (silk and mohair), two skeins of yummy Regia Silk, and a kit for making felted catnip mice! Thank you so much, Deb!

*sniff sniff* “This is very, very interesting indeed. You’d better get knitting, Mom!”

37 thoughts on “Driving to dye”

  1. Yeah, the cleavageshot was the first thing I noticed. I was all… “WOAH!” HA!!

    Pretty yarns girly. We’ll have to dye some when you come out. Can we drink and dye? I think you need a countdown thingy for when you leave to come!

  2. Thanks for explaining about the fountain! Did you think that we would have thought it was for rinsing your hands? 😉

    Thanks for not subjecting me to two pics of the purple!

  3. Yay for innies!!!!
    Can you guess whats coming next???
    I LOVE THEM ALL!! Very unlike you colours but they all turned out fab!!
    I need to get some more dyeable stuff.

  4. Looks like you had a great time. I know we all can’t wait to see how all that yarn looks knitted up. How Fun!

  5. Great links and seeing three different views of the dyeing session is really great ;o) Everybody got pictures of something (except the dog trying to eat the yarn, funny!)

    Your yarn looks great skeined up – it really does change the way it looks!

  6. Wow – they turned out really nice. I especially like the pink and black one. Mine are all skeined up and displayed all nice and pretty down in the yarn room, which I guess is too empty by your standards. Must work on that….

  7. Chris- I was interested in the dying, the wool-licking-dog, the fun you guys had- and the gift bag…
    But when I saw the felted mousie kit- my heart started racing!

    What can this mean?

  8. Okay where do I send my money?????????? I want to buy all those skeins of yarn from ya hahahha…

    Could you give more info on the felted mice kit???

    Cheers Eva

  9. Yea, I noticed the cleavage shot too. Looks like you all had a great time.I love all the colors you dyed. Well. it looks like Chaos has started a bib trend, it seems like all the cool cats should have one. I saw Scouts new wool, love the Stormy Chaos.

  10. Oh, very cool! Love the blues…and the pink and black is pretty funky too. Sounds like you guys had a great time, and even Chaos came out a winner!

  11. Yeah, I think that picture could pass as p0rn. *wink*

    The yarn you all dyed is absolutely heavenly. Love all of the colors. Sounds like you guys had such a great time. Gift bags? You got gift bags? How great is that Deb, eh?

  12. Hey there-I’m still at work. Why?

    It’s GREAT to catch up with all you’ve been doing. The row of dyed yarns are lovely! Pet Chaos for me. I would love to make some felted mice for Felix, but I’m afraid the dog may eat them

  13. I love the pink and black. I’m going to have to explore some different methods of dying rather than just koolaid. The bright colors are fantastic.

    Gwen

  14. OF COURSE ‘stormy chaos’ is the one yarn that stubbornly refused to load… I had to reload 7 times before I finally got the pic!

    (that I was willing to reload 7 times on my tortoise-slow dialup service is a tribute to my fondness for you and the Black Paw of Doom)

    Very cool. As is the yarn y’all dyed at Deb’s; I’m so impressed by your productivity, as well as your willingness to go anywhere *near* steaming vats of anything with the weather being what it is…

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