2020 Summer Mini Skein Mini Series

The 2020 Summer Mini Skein Mini Series is here!  Each night this week at 8:30 PM EST the newest video will premiere on the ChemKnits Tutorials YouTube Channel.  I will be in the LIVE chat a ~15 minutes before the premiers start to react, chat, and answer questions.  I hope to see you there! 

You can find all 5 videos in the following playlist:

Just like 2019, this collection of bonus videos will feature dyeing 20 g mini skeins.  All of the yarn is 75% Superwash Merino/25% Nylon and in 2020 all of the videos will feature a type of food coloring.  COVID-19 has forced me to shift some of my filming plans, but I am so excited that I was able to produce a fun and informative series.  Enjoy!

Can you dye yarn with Skittles Candy?

You thought I was done with rainbows for a while?  Well Paradise Fibers had other ideas!  In the July 2019 Fiber of the Month Club Box they gave my "Dyeing Yarn with Leftover Halloween Candy" a shout out in the newsletter:

I have dyed a LOT of yarn with candy, but I haven't used skittles since the original video back in November 2017.  Dyeing with candy is very similar to dyeing with food coloring.  However, since it takes a while for the artificial food coloring in the candy to dissolve, you can get some beautiful pockets of color in a very fun and random fashion.  

Here are some  of my tips and recommendations for dyeing yarn with candy:

1. You need a protein based yarn.  Wool, Alpaca, Silk, and Cashmere are all protein based fibers.  Plant based fibers are cellulose based and won't absorb food coloring in the same way.  Blends will work great, as long as there is some protein fiber content in there.  
2. Waxy candy (like Skittles) can leave residue on fiber.  I prefer to use more chalky candys like Sweetarts and Candy Hearts since the washing is significantly easier in the end.
3. Dyeing with candy requires a lot of washing.  I recommend spinning your fiber into yarn before dyeing it with candy.  I will remove the fiber directly from the warm dyebath into a warm rinse bath to help keep any of the dissolved candy from solidifying on the fiber.  
4. With Skittles, remove the colorless insides as soon as the colorful outer shell has dissolved.  There is no food coloring on the inside of Skittles so you can save yourself some washing later on by picking out the candy from your dyebath. 
5. Start small. If you're feeling nervous, start with a miniskein or just a few grams of fiber to see if you like the effect.  You can always scale up and dye more fiber later! 

After the Paradise Fibers shout out, I decided to try dyeing some fiber and yarn with just Skittles in a YouTube livestream since I had never tried this candy on its own before.  I did three different tests 8 g of the 50/50 Cashmere / Rose Fiber from Paradise Fibers, 100 g of KnitPicks Hawthorne High Twist Sock Yarn (80% Superwash Peruvian Highland Wool/ 20% Polyamide), and 100 g of KnitPicks Wool of the Andes Roving (100% Peruvian Highland Wool). 

50/50 Rose /Cashmere Fiber

I was very conservative on the luxury rose/cashmere fiber.  I used the small packet of skittles that came in the kit plus a couple more pieces of candy.  As soon as the outer shell dissolved, I removed the inner portion and transferred the fiber into some warm tap water to help rinse out all of the dissolved candy.  

Hawthorne Yarn (left) WOTA Roving (Right) before and after the candy dissolved.  

With the superwash yarn and the wool roving, I decided to take a greater risk.  I dumped a lot of skittles on top of the fiber and let it dissolve completely.  I washed the fiber thoroughly, but I was much more gentle on the roving than I was on the sock yarn.  The Rose/Cashmere fiber came out really beautiful - I even spun it in the recap!  The yarn turned out really well, too.  The wool roving... it is definitely waxy.  I was hesitant to wash it aggressively because I didn't want to felt the fiber.  I think that after I spin the roving I will try washing it in hot water to see if I can get the wax to melt back off.  The yarn still won't be superwash, but it will be safer than washing the unspun fiber aggressively.  

Can you dye yarn with Skittles?  100% yes!  It is so much fun... and it smells really good, too.  My official recommendation is to do this technique on yarn versus unspun fiber, but I have a feeling that I'm going to play around with my favorite candy hearts on some roving in the coming months. 

Watch the livestream recap to learn more about the whole project:

Dyeing aside, the Rose/Cashmere fiber is a stunning blend.  The yarn was silky and it practically spun itself.  I cannot wait to spin up the rest of the fiber that came in the Fiber of the Month Club box.  Part of me is debating dyeing the rest (with acid or fiber reactive dyes) or leaving it in its natural color.  I truly cannot decide!  

Paradise Fibers put a beautiful box together each month for the Fiber of the Month Club. (Affiliate Link)  In addition to the rainbow dyeing project, this Wizard of Oz themed box has a rainbow of Corriedale fiber, a yellow brick road (Lego) stitch marker, and the "Wizard of Ewez" vinyl sticker.  Each month Paradise Fibers makes me smile with the creativity and care they put into these packages.  I truly look forward to them because I cannot wait to see what they will come up with for next month!

I'm not sure if there are any more July 2019 Fiber of the Month Club boxes left, but it never hurts to reach out to Paradise Fibers to ask! 

If you missed the unboxing where I first saw the newsletter, you really want to watch the replay (My reaction to the shoutout is at 13:18):

 
Thank you so much, Paradise Fibers, for the shout out!

This post is not sponsored.  Paradise Fibers sends me their Fiber of the Month Club for free each month to unbox and review.  I am a member of their affiliate program which means that I earn commission on purchased made after clicking on my link.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.  

Rainbow Roundup!

To show my support for Pride Month, I decided to dye up a bunch of Rainbows and make a donation to the Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis intervention to LGBTQ youth.  Here are some of the stunning colorways I created in June:

In the two June #ChemKnitsDyeAlong livestreams, I talked a lot about Rainbows mean to me personally. The light and the hope that they can represent.  I picked a picture that had a lot of options.  I will finish up the recap from the dye alongs later this week.  If you want to be featured in the recap, share your projects on Instagram with #ChemKnitsDyeAlong or as a comment on the Facebook thread.  Whether you wanted to take a literal view of this scene, or focus on the rainbow itself, I always love seeing what you create!

A cartoonish version of the Dye Along Photo

A "green" rainbow - dyeing both sides of the blank

Rainbow roving!

All of the ChemKnits Dye Along livestreams and recaps are in the following Playlist (the June Livestreams are #19 & 20)

I was so excited to finally dye some rainbows with commercial acid dyes.  This stunning speckled gradient was created with a commercial double stranded sock blank that I unraveled for a matched 50 g pair.  What would you create out of this yarn? 

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A post shared by ChemKnits (@chemknits) on Jul 6, 2019 at 6:09am PDT

During the livestream, I kept an extra presoaked skein of yarn off to the side to use as a dye mop.  Whenever I had dye powder on my gloves from speckling and wanted to swap colors, first I would wipe off the extra dye on the yarn before washing the gloves.  This created a random rainbow yarn that is unique and full of fun.  I think part of the beauty comes in because my focus is elsewhere when I'm creating these mops to leave no dye behind. 

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What is a yarn mop? 🧹 An extra skein I use to wipe dye powder off my gloves, to soak up extra dye in a pan, or to wipe down a counter. 🧶🎨 These one of a kind colorways end up being some of the most beautiful I ever create and it is an excellent way to #LeaveNoDyeBehind. 🥰 This rainbow yarn was born in the second part of the June #ChemKnitsDyeAlong. 🌈 The livestream replays are available now and a recap of the yarns we all dyed for the dye along will come out in early July. . . . #rainbowyarn #dyeyarn #chemknitstutorials #youtube #dyealong #indiedyer #dyestagram #yarnmop #leftoverdye #speckledyarn #rainbow #rainbow🌈 #yarn #yarnlover #yarnstagram

A post shared by ChemKnits (@chemknits) on Jun 28, 2019 at 9:15am PDT

The following video won't be out into August, but if I'm sharing some of my favorite rainbow yarns... this one HAS to be on the list.  A long time ago, in a livestream, I sprayed a sock blank with different colors and then showed how it unraveled for amazing alternating speckles.  I finally created a stand alone video, and how stunning is this deep rainbow?  I have a feeling I will be recreating this colorway more in the future. 

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Each time I dye a gradient of rainbow speckles, I get very excited. 🌈💖🌈 This skein took my breath away. The dark purple-black speckles alternate with the rainbow colors for a new twist on a ChemKnits Favorite. Even with an automated skeinwinder I had to wind this one out by hand to see the gradient in full force. What would you create with this set? The dyeing video 🎥 won't come out until late August, but this stunning set of 50 g skeins is currently available in the #ChemKnitsCreations #Etsy store! (See link in profile) There is only one right now, but I have a feeling that I will revisit this colorway in the future. Created with @knit_picks sock blank 🧶 and @wiltoncakes color mist sprays. 🧁 #sneakpeak #tutorial #rainbow #rainbowyarn #yarnstagram #yarnie #diy #sockyarn #foodcoloring #handdyedyarn #indiedyer #fiberartist

A post shared by ChemKnits (@chemknits) on Jun 7, 2019 at 7:09am PDT

In addition to the dye along, I played with all 40 colors of Jacquard Acid dyes in a couple of different ways.  I like to do crude swatches with new dyes to get a sense of relative intensity and hue between the colors.  There are much more accurate ways to do this, but this is a quick and dirty way to get a quick feel for all of the colors in the collection. 

The swatching is useful (and the final yarns are gorgeous!), but the real winner was the Leave No Dye Behind take on this project.  I used the seals from all of the containers on a single skein of yarn.  This rainbow yarn has all 40 colors on it! 

I could dye rainbows all day every day.  I hope that you enjoyed this look at some of my favorites from June 2019! 

Leave No Dyes Behind!

What do you do with leftover dye?  If I have extra dye in a cup, the remaining ends of bottles, or some extra powder on my counter, I can't bring myself to just throw the dye away.  These dyes can turn into something wonderful!  I find myself saving leftovers whether they're food coloring or commercial dyes to use to create some stunning one of a kind colorways. 

The following video is a great example of this philosophy.  I added a bunch of pastels onto some KnitPicks Bare Stroll fingering weight yarn (Affiliate Link) and felt like something was missing.  I have a container where I combine random acid dye powders leftover from projects (which at the time was mostly Forest Green) and added speckles onto the yarn.  This tied the whole thing together, and I think the results are stunning. 

This yarn is currently available in the ChemKnits Creations Etsy Store! 
The only downside to using leftover dyes is that sometimes I create some colorways that are so beautiful I'd love to recreate them.  Recreation is hard when you're not aware of the acidity and proportions of different dyes used.  Sometimes the dyebath is fresh for these videos, but frequently I'm using leftover exhausted baths, or presoaks... basically anything that I can reuse!

Want to see more Leave No Dye Behind videos?  Check out the following playlist!  This is a non-numbered series of videos that show up in random order.  Sometimes they're tied to the video where I mixed the dyes, and other times I have no idea where the leftovers came from. No matter what, we have a ton of fun!

 

This post contains some KnitPicks affiliate links, which means that I earn a commission off of any sales through my link.  I have been a KnitPicks affiliate since Fall 2017.  

Mystery Surprise Color Combinations! TODAY 9:30 AM EST

Fate has given us some of our very favorite broken food coloring colorways.  Why would I want to up the ante and get a kit that had 50 different food coloring colors to choose from?  The chalkboard is back, and I'm going to let the dice decide some fun yarn colors! 

I recently purchased the AmeriColor Nifty Fifty Kit which has 50 of their gel food coloring colors in it.  I promptly mixed all 50 colors together to create in a video some really pretty pink-green yarn colorways.  (Unfortunately, after filming the video I realized that they also have a Heavenly Seventy Kit... whoops!) 


This "fresh box of crayons" is calling my name. Join me today at 9:30 AM EST as I pull out my dice to mix some randomly selected colors together.  What kinds of colorways will we create on yarn? There are still a couple of preorder slots left, so you can pick the yarn base that I dye if you hurry.  Once the livestream begins, any remaining slots will default to "Surprise Sock." 

 
I hope you can join me in the livestream!  

This post contains affiliate links, but the post and these videos are not sponsored.  I selected the products and all thoughts and opinions are my own.  

Dyeing Yarn with Highlighters

I have always enjoyed back to school shopping... or at least opening up brand new school supplies.  Crisp markers, sharp crayons, and brand new highlighters.  When these markers were fresh, before the bright fluorescent colors were dulled by text book ink, they were so bright and crisp that I wanted to doodle with them.  It was less fun to actually use them to highlight text, but I still enjoyed the process of drawing the bright, crisp lines.

I was OVERJOYED when Paradise Fibers sent me their September Fiber of the Month Club BACKPACK filled with a back to school themed fiber package.  (Disclaimer - I am a Paradise Fibers affiliate marketer and they sent me the Fiber of the Month club for free to unbox and share.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.)  Instead of the box that showed up the previous two months, I opened my front door to find a clear poly mailer with a purple draw string backpack inside.  I knew that I need to unbox this right away.  You can watch the replay of the live unboxing below:

If there was ever a subscription box geared towards ChemKnits... this was the one!  The washable nylon backpack was filled with goodies; 4 oz of undyed Cheviot wool top, 4 - 1 oz bags of recycled Sari Silk pulled rovings, and a zippered pouch that had 3 Sharpie highlighters, 1 pair of vinyl gloves, a Sheep Sticker, a chalkboard sheep pin, and some bubble gum.  The best part of this package... it included an unconventional yarn dyeing tutorial: Dyeing Wool with Highlighters!

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Eee! My @paradisefibers September 2017 Fiber of the Month Club BACKPACK 🎒arrived and I just had to unbox it immediately! 😊 The unboxing replay is on the #ChemKnitsTutorials #YouTube channel. The best part of this back to school backpack? A DYEING PROJECT! ✒️🐑 I think I will need to do a dyeing livestream on Wednesday to try this out. 💖🎆 This backpack was filled with goodies are there are so many new techniques to learn. Thank you so much, @paradisefibers, for sending me the club this month! If you want to bring this one home, sign up for the fiber of the month club before September 10. The subscription starts at $34.99/month and is such a great value. 😎 

A post shared by ChemKnits (@chemknits) on Sep 8, 2018 at 12:13pm PDT

There were rumors that this package would include a dyeing tutorial, but I didn't anticipate something so unique and whimsical.

I had been thinking about dying yarn with Sharpie Markers for a while (I recently found a huge packet from my childhood saved in one of my old boxes), but I it has never occurred to me to try to dye yarn with highlighters.  I knew as soon as I opened this package that I wanted to try this out in a livestream.  This way you could experience my true reactions (joys and frustrations) without me needing to edit the process down.

What You Need to Dye Wool with Highlighters

• Wool (Roving or Yarn, Superwash or non-superwash, they all worked great!) 
• Rubbing Alcohol
• Vinegar
• Sharpie Highlighters - I ordered some extras so I could extract some of the dye in advance and also demonstrate this in the livestream
• Plyers - to help remove the end cap of the markers
• 3+ cups to extract the color
• Dedicated Dye Pot - This should be something that can hold some heat.  I heat set the color in a combination of using hot water, low immersion on the stove top in a steam pan, and steaming in a steamer basket.  You want to use non-food items for this dyeing project. 
• Gloves - My favorites are purple nitrile gloves.  
• Syringe (Optional) - I found the best way to extract the color was to inject rubbing alcohol directly into the dye tube, pushing out the dye.  This was significantly faster than cutting up the tubes and letting the dye come out overnight.  
• Black Light (Optional)

The instructions included with the kit were fairly broad and left a lot of room for creativity.  The general concept for this project is to dye the wool like you were using acid dyes.  Presoak your yarn or fiber in a vinegar solution, add the dye, add heat, and then rinse it out once the colors have absorbed.  

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A post shared by ChemKnits (@chemknits) on Sep 11, 2018 at 5:24pm PDT

The dye extraction step can take a few hours, so I picked up a few extra highlighters to do a cooking show type swap during the livestream.  The night before, I opened up three highlighters, cut the tubes into pieces, and left them to soak in a 50/50 mixture of warm water and rubbing alcohol.  By the morning, the tubes were much paler and there was a lot of color in the mixture.  During the livestream, I discovered that if I injected rubbing alcohol slowly into the highlighter dye tube, I could push out the dye fairly quickly.  Maybe I didn't need to do the overnight step, but at least there was plenty of color the play with so we could do multiple dyeing projects with these highlighters.  

The livestream is long, but we learned so much during this time.  The yellow highlighter is pH sensitive, so when you add acid it looks like it disappears.  (Later in the recap I discovered that this didn't completely disappear, but I'll get to that in a moment.)  The vibrant yellow as no where to be found, leaving behind a faint butter yellow color.  The pink, orange, and blue were super saturated and bound really well to the fiber.

Immediately after I added the dye 

After an hour

In addition to dyeing the roving I got in my Paradise Fibers - Fiber of the Month Club Subscription, I decided to dye 6 miniskeins in different fiber types. I drew the highlighters directly onto some 100% acyrlic, 100% polyester, 100% cotton, 100% superwash merino, 75% superwash merino/25% nylon, and 100% Peruvian Highland wool yarns that had been presoaked in vinegar.  The yellow had a bit of trouble sticking, but the other colors went on easily.  I steamed the yarn and then washed to to see where the colors stuck.  The highlighters dyed the wool based yarns really nicely, with sharper marks on the superwash yarns.  The highlighter almost completely washed out of the synthetics and cotton yarn, which the exception of a faint trace of pink on each of them.

In addition to the roving and the mini-skeins, I also hand painted some yarn with the highlighter color to see how those would turn out.

The livestream recap for this project is a little more involved (i.e. longer) than normal.  I decided to wash all of the highlighter dyed fiber on camera so you could see how color fast, and how much bleeding, there was in each of the projects.

I think the biggest surprise was that the yellow highlighter actually bound to the yarn.  It looked like it completely disappeared in acid, but when you looked at the yarn under the black light you could see it show through. When I was handpainting the orange and pink yarn, I tried to paint on some yellow and once it disappeared, I covered that up with the pink and orange.  Under the black light, you could see where I had added the yellow!  This could be a super fun way to create a hidden message on a sock blank. 

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A post shared by ChemKnits (@chemknits) on Sep 20, 2018 at 6:02am PDT

I was surprised how much fun this project was.  I knew it would be whimsical, but I did not anticipate the level of color saturation you could achieve with highlighters on yarn.  I loved that so many of you decided to join me at home.  This livestream really felt like a dye-a-long - you were able to test things and share your own results in the live chat.  This was unbelievably fun.  I have a feeling that this is something that will end up in a Dyepot Weekly episode in the future. 

Thank you so much, Paradise Fibers, for sending me this project!  It was a true pleasure to play around with this technique.  Clearly I need to revisit this package of Sharpie Markers... It shouldn't matter that they are decades old, I bet I'll be able to extract some color from them!

This post contains affiliate links to Paradise Fibers, Amazon, and KnitPicks.  Paradise Fibers sent me their products to review, and I was so excited that I did multiple extra videos and blog posts.  I selected items from Amazon and KnitPicks myself.  All thoughts and options are my own.  

KnitPicks Skill Builder Subscription Box Review

Last month, KnitPicks released three different subscription boxes! For $48.00/month, pick between "Skill Builder" "Sock Yarn" or "Fan Favorites". If you decide to prepay for 3-months, you can save $15!  Shipping is free within the US but there are some international shipping options available.  I reached out to KnitPicks and asked if they would send me a sample to review.  I was so excited when the box showed up on my doorstep, it was so big and heavy!  Let's take a look at what is inside the first Skill Builder Subscription Box. 

August 2018 - Socks!

August's Skill Builder Box is all about Socks.  I was amazed when I opened up this box and realized that I didn't own any of the items in it already!  This box also happened to be perfect for me because I've been talking about trying to knit socks in livestreams over the past few months.  Now I really don't have an excuse! 

This Box Includes:

• 2 - 50 g Balls of Stroll Sock Yarn (Navy)
• 2 - 50 g Balls of Stroll Tweed Sock Yarn (North Pole Heather)
• Sunstruck 32" Circular Needles Size 2 (2.75 mm)
• Majestic Double Pointed Needles Size 2 (2.75 mm) - 5"
• Locking Stitch Markers
• Retractable Tape Measure
• Project Bag (100% Organic Cotton) 
• Enamel Pin (Sock Themed!) 
• Socks for Everybody! - softcover book
• Go Your Own Way Socks - printed instructions

The box contains everything you could possibly need to start knitting your own socks.  Yarn, circular AND DPN needles, measuring tape, stitch markers, and PLUS sock knitting patterns.  Fine, almost everything.  You will need to bring your own scissors and reading glasses.  But everything else you could possibly need is in the box!

Stroll is one of my favorite yarns to dye, and the KnitPicks wooden needles are my favorites to knit with.  I'm thrilled that these are included in this box!  The included book looks at multiple different ways to construct a heel, toe, and body of socks to give you plenty of choices for your first pair.  I think this box was curated to appeal to as many knitters as possible, and they sure didn't disappoint! 

Skill Builder Subscription Box Value

KnitPicks said on their site that these subscription boxes have a $60 value.  I decided to take a closer look at the value of the contents in my box. I went through the KnitPicks website and added everything into my shopping cart. 

When I added the kit contents to my cart, the total value of the items was $64.20.  This is INCLUDING 40% off of the Socks for Everybody book and 50% off the Department of Toasty Toes pin.  If those items weren't on sale right now, the total value would be even higher.

What is not included in this total?  Shipping ($5.99 on orders $64.99 and under) and the Go Your Own Way Socks instructions.  The pattern is available for free, but a color print out does have some value.  I love that this kit included everything you need to start knitting socks, PLUS it provides you with plenty of options for that first pair.

My Dream KnitPicks Subscription

I would love to see a subscription option that would work for KnitPicks Superfans.  I own a LOT of KnitPicks yarn, books, tools, and swag already, so I would worry that I would receive duplicates of something I already own if I were to sign up.  (I'm actually really impressed that I didn't own anything in the skill builder box!)  I would love to see a subscription box that featured the latest and newest items.  Tools, colorways, new yarn lines, etc.   It is possible that the Fan Favorites Subscription might include new things, but I think the new vs favorite balance would be super important. Sock Lab Yarns? New Felici Colorways?  Getting the first look at items before they're released to the public would be super tempting.

I would also love a dyers subscription box.  KnitPicks has DOZENS of bare yarn bases, and I think it could be really fun to send out a 3-pack of a yarn base each month with a tutorial.  KnitPicks, if you would ever like to collaborate on something like this, I'd love to help out!

I think it is important to think of these subscription boxes as KNITPICKS boxes, versus yarn subscription boxes.  Whatever subscription you choose, you will get a surprise carefully curated box of yarn, needles, tools, and patterns that has a FANTASTIC value.  I think that this box would make an excellent gift for a beginning knitter who is ready to expand their skills.

Watch the Unboxing 

Want to see my LIVE reactions to the KntiPicks Skill Builder Subscription Box?  Watch the replay from my live unboxing: 

 

Learn to Knit with KnitPicks

If you think you're not quite ready for the Skill Builder Subscription, check out the Learn to Knit boxes from KnitPicks.  You can start with a Dishcloth, Scarf, or Hat kit and get everything you need in your box.  

Conclusions

I think that the Skill Builder Subscription is perfect for someone who is comfortable with basic knit stitches and wants to expand their confidence level, and tool collection, for other techniques.  I have no idea what will be in future boxes, but there are so many possibilities;  lace, cables, brioche, colorwork, toys... I could keep going.  I have a feeling that many people are going to include one (or multiple) of these subscription boxes on their wishlists this holiday season! 

Which KnitPicks Subscription Box would you most like to try out? What would they put in your dream box?  Let me know in the comments what you would love to see in your dream knitting (or crochet!) subscription.  

Disclaimer: This post contains KnitPicks affiliate links.  I have been a KnitPicks affiliate since October 2017, but I have been using their products in my designs and videos for almost a decade.  I reached out to KnitPicks to ask them to send me one of their new subscription boxes so I could share it with all of you.