Look at this!
This was a mistake. It wasn’t supposed to happen but in my ineptitude and inexperience, this is what I got.
Isn’t it gorgeous? Sea colors! Come sail away!
Yesterday I finally had the time to do a dye project that’s been flitting through my head for a while now. Nothing spectacular you know, just wanting to see if what I had left of the blue and purple Easter-egg dyes would give me a nice blue-violet - one of my favorite shades. So I gathered my supplies and dug out the last of my undyed wool and got to it.
The yarn is LB Fisherman’s wool and there was just about 6 ounces of it. I hadn’t dyed anything like that quantity before but I figured nothing ventured, etc… I washed the yarn, as usual and placed it in the crock pot - there was not a lot of sloshing room left over. Then I mixed the dyes (three tablets each of blue and purple - roughly one tablet per ounce of fiber which is what I’ve been doing pretty much all along).
Here I got my first hint that something might be a little different than usual. The dye in the bowl looked very blue, medium dark, and showed very little red presence at all. I shrugged mentally, decided I could live with the color, and proceeded to pour the dye over the yarn in the crock pot. It didn’t, of course, hit all of the yarn nor did the liquid completely cover the yarn so I quickly added more water. When the water hit the parts of the yarn that had absorbed some of the dye it washed away the color - except for the reds (which turned out to be there after all) leaving a pink color in the yarn! After getting the liquid level right, I stirred everything together (gently, of course), set the crock pot on low and went and did some last minute grocery shopping.
When I got home, I checked to make sure the yarn had absorbed all the dye (it had), turned the pot off and let it cool. From what I was looking at the top of the crock, it looked as though the purple had established a presence and what I could see looked very close to the blue-violet I had originally had in mind. Imagine my surprise when I lifted it out to be washed and saw all kinds of colors running through the hank raging from pink/purple to blue to blue/green!
And no mud anywhere - no yucky shades where the colors hadn’t played nicely with one another!
I was enchanted. After the yarn had been washed and hung to dry, I kept going back out into the kitchen to look at it because the colors were so pretty. The colors were, of course, lighter this morning because it was mostly dry, but still quite attractive - at least to my eye.
I also learned something else :) I had been using white, cotton crochet thread to tie up hanks of yarn for dyeing. This time I thought I would use pieces of the wool itself. As it happened, I didn’t cut up enough wool so the hank wound up being tied half with wool and half with the cotton thread.
I had known that the cotton wouldn’t take up this kind of dye. What I hadn’t realized was that it could actually block the wool from taking up the dye too.
See the light spot just north of my finger?
That’s where part of the tie sat on the hank. The yarn isn’t totally without color, but the color it has is quite light. I’m guessing it’s what seeped in from the strands around it as the cotton tie never allowed it any direct contact. I had made sure the ties were loose. I imagine that the much-larger-than-usual quantity of yarn in combination with the cotton created a situation where once this particular section of the hank was in the dye bath, it never was able to move (even when I was stirring it) enough to get the dye to those strands immediately beneath the tie.
The yarn beneath the wool ties looks just as you would expect it to as the ties took up the dye the same way the hank did - being the same material :)
I am constrained to point out, however, that only one of the cotton ties produced this effect. The yarn beneath all the others was fine. However, it occurs to me that this tendency could be used intentionally to create light and dark areas in the same hank. Mmmmm…the possibilities!
I have finally set up The Dye Notebook. It isn’t quite ready for prime time but I should have it up to speed by Wednesday. Though it uses a blog format, it isn’t really that as I won’t be posting to it on anything like a regular basis. But, when I do a new batch of something, the procedure, materials, results, notes and pictures will be posted there. I will always make note in The Yarnpath of a new post in The Dye Notebook and there will, of course, be links from one to the other.
I wish you all a wonderful and safe holiday!
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It’s gorgeous. I LOVE sea colors. Great job. 
Lovely color! A dye notebook too? You’re really going all out these days. :) Can’t wait to read about your adventures.
One of these days I need to teach myself how to dye cotton - now THAT would be a trip!
Joan - Thanks - sea colors are some of my favorites too. I was quite surprised but very pleased with the outcome of this experiment :)
Bron - Well, the dye notebook is really convenient place to keep my notes and the information will be available should anyone else be interested.
In my area, WalMart carries cotton dyes in the craft department. I have no idea how well they work, but Myria spotted them when I was looking for more colors to experiment with :) I think I remember that the packages specified plant fibers (and maybe synthetics?) and they were something like $0.99 each. You probably know all about them :)
Wow, such serendipity.
Abi - Not only serendipity, but fortuitous serendipity. LOL!
Wow… I really like the colors. All my favorites in such a great mix.
Mama Besr - It really is kind of startling when you expect to find a solid color in your dye-pot and instead get sunset-at-sea
But it would be just fine with me to continue having accidents like this!
Wow, gorgeous yarn! I’ve never dyed my own before, but after seeing your results, I just might try it! 
Claudia - I heartily encourage you to do so because you’ll never believe how falling-off-a-log simple it is otherwise. It’s good to have a flaxible view about what you might end up with but ye gods is it fun!
Robbyn, it’s gorgeous! That’s some of the best looking yarn yet. Oh, so drool-worthy.
Thank you Colleen :) Now I have to figure out what to make with it.
You were about to make some Norwegian “flammegarn” (= flame yarn).
:-) Here is a tutorial on how it’s done:
http://cdevine.typepad.com/photos/variegated_dyeing/measurewrap.html
And here you can buy some: http://colorjoy.com/forsale/yarnsock.htm
If you’re interrested in natural dyeing, I’ve put some stuff on my blog lately, so welcome over :)
Helene - Thank you so much for the link to the flammegarn procedure! I can’t wait to try this. Thanks also for the invitation to come view your blog. I can’t believe what beautiful colors you’re getting with plants - I’ll be reading along :)
I’m so glad you stopped by!
