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We are now one month away from Sock Summit, and preparations are definitely moving into high gear. Base yarn is on perpetual re-order, and I mutter grumpily about how Kraemer’s Sterling yarn is out of stock until too late. The near-constant use of equipment is taking its toll in the studios of indie dyers from coast to coast. First, Jennifer’s second best dye-pot blew up, then one of my Rubbermaid soaking tubs developed a crack that slowly leaks water.
The thin grey line in the middle of the picture? Leaky crack. I can still use the basin for soaking and washing dyed yarn if it’s in the sink, but next time I’m at Fred Meyer’s Wall o’Rubbermaid I’ll need to get a replacement.
And what have I been dyeing? Sock Summit and Ravelry are sponsoring a contest for dyers selling in the Sock Summit marketplace, called Dye for Glory, and I’ve worked up a couple of colorways to enter. One goes by the catchy name of Clown Barf, a term of affection that knitters apply to particularly BRIGHT colorways. This is my version:
Available in my Etsy shop, of course!
We had a run of lovely warm weather, so the roses have been happy. Here is a bloom of Just Joey, a lovely apricot rose with a delightful scent that thrives in the Northwest. No black spot!
I’ve been dyeing some self-striping yarn by winding a bigger diameter skein, dyeing 28 inches of it one color, and the remainder another — when knitted in a typical sock configuration, you get one row of the first color, followed by two rows of the other. There are various ways of doing this, but here’s a particularly fun method and colorway that I’ve developed.
First I make a very hot vinegared dyebath in a purple that I’ve mixed from red and blue dye. The longer section of the skein goes into this while I’m holding the shorter section out of the water.
The red dye and much of the blue strikes on the skein as purple, but there is some blue left in the dyebath.
Dropping in the remaining undyed section of the skein allows it to start soaking up the blue.
The purple section is still taking up a little of the blue as well. This makes for a very interesting and nuanced purple.
Since I wanted to reuse the pot of water, I then steamed the yarn to make sure the dye got throughly fixed. Here’s the skein as it’s cooling down after steaming.
A bonus is that there’s still a little blue left in the dyebath, because I didn’t let the skein cool in it and absorb those last few molecules of blue dye.
So I can take another skein of yarn and drop it in to soak up those last bits. It’s a prettier pale blue in person, and may stay that color, or get overdyed to deepen the color. So many choices!
I’ve dyed up the last of the SeaCell yarn base, in preparation for my booth at Sock Summit. These are all semi-solids. The lower one here is really shades of pink, not orange.
Four colors today, four colors yesterday, below.
Tomorrow I think I’ll do my last few skeins of silk/wool blend, then plunge into BFL and merino/nylon superwash for the duration. Oh, and call Kraemer to see how the backorder of Sterling is doing — I’d sure like to have more of that.
My, I do seem to be on a buying binge lately. First a clock, and now a full-size sheet pan. Costco has these beauties for about $7. The lady behind me at the checkout helpfully said, “That may not fit in your oven,” and she was right, but it’s not going into my oven, it’s for making handpainted yarn on.
No leaks
Here it is holding two skeins of in-progress Northern Lights yarn — the dip into deep navy blue dye followed. Works a treat!
Someone 0n Ravelry suggested that folks traveling to Sock Summit make little knitted socks to wear as lapel pins on the journey, so we can identify each other and also spread the word about the delights of sock knitting.
So here is my teeny tiny sock, out of Blue Faced Leicester yarn on my It’s Easy Being Green colorway, another skein available in my Etsy shop. Adorable, no? It has a teeny tiny short row heel
and a teeny tiny kitchenered toe. The ankle area was not so teeny tiny, so I took a couple of stitches in it, which give it a charming quasi-medieval look, I think.
Sock Summit is going to be grand! I’ll be a vendor there, and am dyeing (for me) vast quantities of yarn to take. See you there?
