Tutorial: Self striping sock yarn

Now, I am not an expert. But I hand dyed some self striping sock yarn, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out!

So, I figured I'd share what I did with you all.

Materials:
Wool yarn. I used superwash sock yarn, which is less likely to felt.
Jacquard acid dyes
vinegar
water
cotton crochet thread for ties
Dawn dish soap for washing afterwards

Tools:
saran wrap
squirt bottles
measuring spoon
gloves
dust mask
warping mill (or something to measure out your yarn)
swift (Or someone to hold the hank of yarn out for you in their hands.)
ball winder (Optional. You can ball up the yarn by hand.)
scissors
steamer
tub for soaking

Note: Do not use any of the items used for dyeing for food preparation ever again.

So, the first thing I did was to wind the hank of yarn from the swift onto my warping mill. I figured that 5 yards on the mill would give me about a 10 yard repeat (as the yarn goes back and forth from end to end.) My calculations were that that length would give me about an inch pattern repeat in my socks. You'll have to swatch for your own tension and row size to get your own figures.

 I tied loose figure 8 ties every yard, from some cotton crochet thread. That helps keep things from tangling, and the cotton doesn't dye so I can find it easily later on. Don't tie these too tight, or they will block the dye from getting through to the yarn.

 I also used loose ties around each arm of the figure 8 crosses at the ends of the warping mill. This again keeps things in order, and makes it easier to replace the yarn back onto the mill when the dyeing process is done.

 Then I chained the yarn up as I took it off the warping mill. No tangles!

 I soaked the chained up yarn in a tub of water and vinegar for half an hour. I had about a cup of vinegar in here. This provides the acid for the acid dyes to bond to the fiber.

 While the yarn was soaking, I put down a layer of cling wrap onto my work surface.

 Then, I chose my colors. My client wanted green, yellow, orange, and pink, as bright as possible.

 At this point, I put on my dust mask and gloves. Then I put about a half tsp of dye into each squirt bottle, and mixed it with warm water. Once the dye powders were closed up and put back away, and my area cleaned up, I could take the dust mask back off. I don't want airborne particles in my lungs!!

 I squeezed the water gently out of my yarn, and laid it out onto my work surface.

 Then, I had fun with the squeeze bottles! I used my gloved fingers to squish the dye down into the yarn, to make sure it got all of the way through. A bit of color theory helped here. I wanted bright colors, and I know that colors across the color wheel from each other combine to make earth tones. So, I kept the green and pink/orange far away from each other.

 After dyeing, I covered everything with another layer of saran wrap.

 Then, I rolled the bundle up.

 I curled the long bundle around itself, and put it in my steamer. I steamed the packet of yarn for an hour, then let it cool overnight. The next morning, I rinsed the yarn in the sink with first a squirt of dish soap, and then plain water to rinse the soap out. You are looking to rinse until the water runs clear. It didn't take long at all this time. Then, I hung the yarn up to air dry. (I forgot to take pictures of the rinsing and drying process.)

Once the yarn was dry, I put it back onto the warping mill, and used my automatic ball winder to put the yarn into a useable form.

 All ready to go!

It worked!!! I cranked out a pair of socks on my 100 year old sock knitting machine, and just danced in my seat the whole time. I am really, really pleased with how it turned out!

Tutorial: Warp Painting

Earlier this summer, I wove this prototype hand-painted cotton ruana/shawl. I loved the way it turned out so much that I'm in the process of making three more for the Etsy shop. (If they make it that far. I've got tentative nibbles on two of the three already.) This week I've been working on measuring and painting the warp. A couple of folks have asked me how I do that, so I took some pictures as I went along. I used 3/2 Valley mercerized perle cotton from Webs (www.yarn.com) and the Dharma fiber reactive Procion dyes (http://www.dharmatrading.com). (In fact, all of the various powders and such are from Dharma.) So the specific instructions are for that combination, but you could use the basic idea with whichever dye system and fiber you're working with.

How to Paint a Warp

Ingredients
-cotton warp yarn
-Dharma fiber reactive Procion dyes in various colors
-Urea
-Soda ash fixative
-Water

Tools (Note: do NOT use any of these items for cooking ever again!)
-measuring cups
-measuring spoons
-wooden spoon
-bin for mixing chemical water
-smaller bins for the dyes
-sponge brushes
-saran wrap
-buckets
-breathing mask
-rubber gloves

Recipe
Chemical water = 3/4 c urea + 1 qt water
Dye = 1 c chemical water + 1 tsp soda ash fixer + dye to taste (about 2 tsp)

First, measure out your warp. I'm going to assume you already know how to do this part. In this case, I made warp chains that will be 3" wide.

Instead of tying up your warp with the typical choke ties, use a looser figure 8 tie. This will keep things pretty much in order, but the dye will be able to get under the tie to the yarn. The first time I tried this I tied things too tightly, and ended up with white stripes. It was a cool effect, but not what I wanted this time around. (It would be fun to experiment with, though!)

Chain up your warp to keep it under control. This is another thing I'm assuming you already know how to do, so I can keep the tutorial focused just on the dyeing.

Toss your warp in a bucket of water to soak for awhile. This will let the dye penetrate more evenly and completely.

Gather up your materials.

Protect your work surface with long strips of cellophane wrap.

Wring out your warp chains. Lay them on the cellophane strips, leaving an inch or so gap between each one and an inch or so at the edges. If your warp is shorter than your work space, you've got it easy. If not, you can do what I did and work in sections. I've got the still chained ends of the warp hanging off my table into totes, so I don't get water all over my floor.

If you want to get your warp chains on the loom in the same order that they're laid out on the table, you'll need to mark the chains somehow. I've used plastic with water proof marker here. I've also tied a string onto the end of the chains with one, two, three, four, etc. knots.

Now it is time to mix up your dye. First, make up your chemical water. For my 14+ yard long warp I ended up using almost 4 quarts. You can mix up more as you go along though, so no need to go overboard.

Put on your dust mask and gloves. You don't want this stuff in your lungs. Mix up your dyes. I made a cup of each color at a time, and mixed more as needed as I went along. (The recipe is up at the top of this tutorial.)

Now for the fun part! Wet down your sponge brush and have at it. The colors will wick up the cotton yarn, and blend into each other where they meet. Know your color theory as to which colors will blend to give you which effects. Colors that are across the color wheel from each other will give you more earthy tones. I chose wine red, turquoise, cobalt blue, and black, to keep things in the red/purple/blue range.

Check to make sure the color is saturating all of the yarn. Turn it over to look on the bottom. Squish the color around with your fingertips. You want enough dye to saturate, but not so much that you end up dripping onto the floor. (I did anyway. I'm a messy artist.) (Having some paper towels around won't hurt.)
 

When you're done painting your current section of warp, fold the edges of the saran wrap in over the yarn. Start at the far end, and roll up the warp and saran wrap toward the unpainted end.

Lay out another strip of saran wrap, and carefully carry your roll of painted warp back down to the end of the table.

Straighten out the next section of warp to be painted.

Back to the fun part!

When you are all done painting, transfer your warp rolls into something that you don't mind getting dye on. (They'll ooze). Make sure your tote doesn't have a hole in the bottom, or you'll have an awful mess. Trust me on that one. Now, leave the yarn and dye to sit for 12 to 24 hours. This will set the dye.

So, the next day unroll your warp bundles somewhere where you don't mind things getting a little messy.

Re-chain up your warp. Now it is safe to move it around again without much fear of tangles.

Take your wet drippy colorful bundle of warp, and rinse it out with cool running water until all the excess dye is washed away. I dumped mine in the shower this time.

Hang the chains to dry. Now you're ready to warp up your loom!

Silk painting and color theory: blending complementary colors

I'm back to dyeing silk scarves again. I was asked to recreate the color scheme of one of the rectangular scarves, but in a 30" x 30" square instead. It will be a head scarf. I said yes...and then realized that I didn't remember how I got that exact scheme. However, I think I got pretty close here, don't you? It has a little more of the pink/purple than the original. The colors are all there--just in slightly different proportions.

While I was doing the square scarves (I made a half dozen of them, just to offer some variety of choice) I decided to play with color theory. I know from a class I took some years ago that colors that are across the color wheel from each other are called complementary colors. That would be red/green, blue/orange, and yellow/purple. If you mix complementary colors, you can get some awesome earthy tones.

So, I decided to play. I chose 4 colors of purple, and 3 colors of yellow dye. I put 4 eyedroppers of the yellows on my palette. (I used the canary yellow twice.)

Then I added a half an eyedropper of purple to the yellows.

The left two colors mixed into beautiful browns and oranges.

The right two however were a little more pink than I wanted.

So I added a eyedropper of saffron yellow to those two mixtures.

I painted the whole scarf with squiggles of color, then added salt in swirls and scatters.

Then I sat back, and watched the paint dry. When that got old, I went and got dinner, and came back later to see what I had. The salt pulled the dye into intricate patterns, and the dye lightened into a beautiful warm, rich scarf.

I have all 6 head scarves dyed, as well as one short rectangular scarf that is a test of coloration for another commission. That last one is currently drying on the stretcher frame. Next up, the scarves need to set for at least 24 hours. After the wait time, I can steam the scarves to set the color. After another 24 hour wait I can wash them and iron them dry, and they'll be good to go.

And yes, I took better notes this time.

Silk painting with complementary colors of dye: blue and orange

I'm still working with the silk scarves, and having great fun playing with the color combinations. I've done a bunch so far where the dye colors I choose are right next to each other on the color wheel. That makes for a lovely scarf, and is a pretty safe bet.

But I took color theory class awhile ago, and I recalled that if you use colors that are across from each other on the color wheel you can get some neat earth tones. I decided to give it a try, and picked out the two blues I had, and the orange to go with it.

I used the two blues full strength, and then mixed each of them half and half with the orange. Then I painted swirls of color. I dripped a couple of times by mistake...so I dripped all over the scarf and called it on purpose. Then I put salt on the scarf, and let it dry. The salt pulled the dye into intricate, organic shapes. And as the dye was pulled, it separated in interesting ways.

As I was taking the salt off the dry scarf, I dripped water on it. Since the dye isn't steam set yet, that changed the pattern. Oops. So, once again I turned a mistake into a design feature, and spritzed the whole thing with water droplets.

The result of my experimentation? A very intricate patterning, that reminds me of an deep sea wonderland.


These are such fun to do! I think that completes the dozen I was working on. Now I need to let the dye set up for a day, and then I can steam set them. And then get them up in the shop, so hopefully folks will buy them. That would mean that I could get some more scarf blanks, and play some more! (I can only wear so many scarves myself, after all...)