The Indigo Fruit Vat: La Technique

 Blog

I recently took a class at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, on how to create a quick, environmentally friendly indigo fruit vat. This method was developed by Michel Garcia, a French chemist, botanist and natural dyer. This post is how to go about it. This other post tells you why it works.

The recipe is very simple: 1 part indigo, 2 parts pickling lime, 3 parts fructose, by weight. If you want to use powdered fructose, you just weigh all your ingredients out on a scale.

We used apple juice— cooked-down, mashed apples in water. Any sweet fruit will work, as will dates, or agave or honey, anything with fructose. The only thing not to use is citrus, which will change the Ph of the solution.

By volume, we filled the stockpots we were using about 1/4-1/3 full, then added warm tap water to about 2/3-3/4 full. From the approximate measurements, you can see that the fruit vat is very forgiving. The apple juice was hot and the tap water warm. A warm vat is desirable, but not over 140F, or the chemical reactions won’t take place. The amount of water is not important, other than to have enough space to dye under, because it must all be done below the surface.

Next the indigo is added. We used 20g of powdered indigo for our stockpot. Since indigo is insoluble, it’s hard to stir in without either agitating (i.e. adding oxygen) the pot quite a bit, or having it sit on the surface. To get around this, we put the indigo and some water in a small mason jar with marbles and shook that mixture around vigorously for a few minutes, essentially making a slurry. That was then carefully poured down the side of the pot, to again, minimize the amount of air being introduced into the vat. Any indigo left in the mason jar was swirled around with more water and added as before.

Then we added the pickling lime, also hydrated with some water, and again, carefully poured down the side of the pot. Since we used 20g of indigo, we used 40g of pickling lime.

Then everything was given a good stir. By this I mean creating a vortex in the center of the pot, but not so much to be adding air back in. Once a good swirl was going, we held our spoons still against the side of the pot and let everything swirl to the center. At this point any oxygen bubbles come to the surface in the center of the pot. This is called the “flower”, and if the vat is working properly it should be a deep blue. The vat itself will be a clear greenish-yellow, and it will form a skin on top.

Indigo fruit vat flower

We let the vats sit about an hour for the fruit solids to settle in the bottom of the pot, and for the reducing process to take place. However, out instructor dipped a piece of cloth into her vat about 5 minutes after she stirred hers, and it was already turning a light blue. It’s very fast!

As for the dyeing itself, it must be done below the surface of the liquid, to keep the oxygen out. The fiber should be wetted in warm water prior to dipping, again, to replace the air molecules in the fiber with water molecules. Dip gently down the side of the pot, and hold underneath for at least three minutes. YES WEAR GLOVES! Indigo doesn’t need a mordant, so you will dye your hands, too. During this time massage the fiber. This helps move the indigo into the fiber. As our instructor described it, “Indigo is a large, slow moving molecule. Give it some help.” Depending on what fiber is being dyed, it may be more or less tolerant of the alkaline solution it’s in. Cotton doesn’t mind, but silk and wool can be damaged from too long of contact— they can lose their luster. This is why traditionally cottons are dyed first, then silks, then wools. As the vat is used, it becomes less effective and also less alkaline. Because of the fiber structure of wool, it requires less of the indigo to achieve good color.

After your three minutes or so, bring the material out of the dye vat, and quickly hold it over another bowl to drip in. Any drips back into the vat also add air. Then you must expose the areas that you wanted dyed to the air, so that the indigo re-oxides and forms it’s electrostatic bond with the fiber. You will see it turn from yellow to green to blue, as this process happens. The rule of thumb is to have to material exposed to the air for at least as long as it was in the vat. If the material doesn’t oxidize, it hasn’t been dyed. The other rule of thumb is that at least three dips into the vat a required to achieve a good color. Each subsequent dip happens in the same way, with airing out in between.

Making sure to air out between the folds for good oxidation

The materials you have dyed will be lighter once they’ve dried, so it’s best to get it darker than the final result you want. Each dip in the vat adds another layer of indigo to the material, so it will be more colorfast than just one dip.

Once the color is to your liking, rinse the material and let dry. If it’s wool or silk, soak in a vinegar/water solution to return the Ph to the liking of the fiber, then soak in a mild soap and water, and rinse. Rinsing is only removing the indigo that didn’t bond to the fiber.

The indigo water that runs off from the dyed material in the vat has been oxidized, so don’t add it back to the vat.

Using an indigo vat can only happen for so long before it stops working. This is not because the indigo is used up, rather, it’s because each “dip” into the dye vat also re-introduces oxygen, so the indigo becomes unavailable again, and there’s not enough fructose left in the vat to get the chemical conversion going again. When you are done for the day, add more fructose to your vat, and you can check the Ph with a Ph test strip. It should be around 9-10. If it’s lower than that, add more pickling lime.

When you want to use your vat next, add more fructose, stir the vat again and let the flower come to the surface. It should be dark blue. If you’ve used the vat a few times and the flower is light blue, you will need to add more indigo.

If you want to dispose of your vat, whisking air (specifically the carbon dioxide in the air) in will turn the pickling lime into calcium carbonate, aka chalk. You can go ahead and water your plants with this. Maybe a nice indigo plant.

Indigo-a-go-go: Better Dyeing through Chemistry

 Sally Williams

 Blog

I recently took a class on making an indigo fruit vat. The class was great, the vat is quick and easy and you can read how to do it here, but when it was over I was left wondering what’s going on in there?

The interwebs are sort of helpful, in that you can read all about what happens in the indigo dye process, but there appears to be an underlying assumption that dyers aren’t interested in the chemistry behind what they’re doing, so there’s not a lot out there that puts it in layperson’s terms. And they tell you chemically what happens, but not why it happens. Personally, if I know how a process works, I find it a lot easier to do the steps involved correctly, because it makes sense why all the steps are there. If I’m trying to get a bunch of molecules to do what I want them to do, it will be more efficacious if I’m not bumbling around blindly.

So I’ve spent a good amount of time looking for answers to this question, and what I ended up finding was that the ways and means of indigo extraction and dye methods mirror a lot of other human technologies— in the automotive world I call it the Technology of the Day.

This is indigo:

This molecule is not what is found in indigo-bearing plants (and snails!). True indigo (indigofera tinctoria) and woad, for instance, each contain different indigo precursors— molecules that will turn into indigo once they’ve been oxidized.

This is indican:

This is the precursor to indigo found in the indigofera tinctoria plants. The bow-tie shape is a glucose molecule.

This is indoxyl and this is what actually penetrates the fiber in the indigo vat. The bow-tie shaped glucose has been removed:

When making an indigo vat from fresh plants, all that needs to be done is remove the glucose part of the indican, and you get the smaller indoxl molecule. This is what will penetrate the fiber, and then turn into indigo with the addition of oxygen. Putting the fresh plants in a vat and fermenting them will remove the glucose, because the yeasts from the fermentation will eat the sugar part of the molecule and leave the indoxl behind. Here is a not only a nice article about different indigo precursors, but also a step-by-step tutorial on how to dye with fresh woad.

The indigo can also be precipitated out at this point instead of attaching it to a fiber. This will be the powdered indigo. The main thing to keep in mind is that once it’s been oxidized, it’s all the same indigo molecule; even synthetic indigo is identical. (*Mostly. I’ll come back to this later.) There is a lot of socio-economic history surrounding the trade and use of indigo, and it’s really fascinating, and I recommend this book which lays it all out in great detail:

The turning of soluble indigo-precursor plants into insoluble indigo is where we then go. The indigo can be moved around and traded rather than be tied to the place and season of the plant material. But it’s also one step forward, two steps back: that indigo molecule is not soluble in water. The indigo precursors in the plants are soluble, but in order to make indigo soluble, the oxygens on the indigo molecule need to form other bonds. The indigo needs to be turned into indoxl, then it can be worked into the fibers to be dyed. When the fiber in this dye bath is taken out and reintroduced into the air, lo and behold it oxidizes— it takes up the oxygen molecules from the air and turns back into the insoluble indigo molecule, where it is held fast by electrostatic bonds within the fiber. The best technical description that I found of how the indigo molecule bonds with fiber can be found here.

There are actually a lot of ways to go about making indigo soluble, and they all involve a reducing agent and an alkaline solution. This is the indigo vat. There are a lot of reducing agents, some of them very effective, and also toxic. For instance, here’s the process for dyeing jeans. A reducing agent has free electrons that are readily available to bond with any oxygen in the vat, whether it be on the indigo molecule or oxygen from the air.

Indigo vats need to be alkaline. An alkaline solution simply has more OH ions than H ions:

I couldn’t really find any good descriptions as to why the vat needs to be alkaline— what work are those OH ions doing? I ended up calling my brother in-law, who has a degree in chemistry: a reducing agent adds it’s electrons to form other compounds, so the oxygen bonds on the indigo are transferred and form alcohol chains with the reducing agent. Alcohols are very water soluble. The OH’s in the alkaline solution strip hydrogens off this alcohol group and we end up with the indoxyl. The OH ions are highly reactive, and essentially make the solution even more soluble. The more OH ions, the stronger the alkaline solution is (and the more careful one needs to be in using and disposing of it).

As there are a lot of reducing agents, so there are a lot of ways to go about this reduction, and you can see echoes of the original use of indigo-precursor plants: Fermenting urine is a tried and true method, because the ammonia in urine is already alkaline. Another traditional method is fermenting madder root and bran with soda ash or lye. Fermentations, aside from eating sugars in the original vats, also produce sulfur-containing organic compounds as by-products, which are effective reducing agents. As with any fermentation, you are relying on a process that involves time, often days, at a constant warm temperature. Not only do you have to wait to do your dyeing, but you must rely on a successful fermentation process. Commercial denim dyeing uses very efficient but also much harsher solutions, to the point where repeated dips in the vat need to be carefully timed so that the oxidized indigo already on the denim doesn’t get re-reduced and therefore removed again from the fiber.

I’ve made soap, and I’m not a big fan of dealing with lye, so I’d prefer a weaker base. I’ve successfully made an indigo vat with the madder root and bran, and washing soda which has a weaker Ph than lye. It took about 10 days to be ready to use, and it’s, shall we say, a little stinky. This is the Technology of the Day part: how to get the result you want as cheaply and easily as possible. Cheap and easy are relative terms— for instance, what’s the cost to the environment, or the person using a highly alkaline solution? When you are done with the vat, how are you going to dispose of it? As a home dyer, you can make these choices for yourself.

The fruit-vat method that I learned uses fructose from cooked-down fruit, which are reducing sugars, and pickling lime (calcium hydroxide) to make the solution alkaline. Fruit sugars are an expedient way to make a vat because they have free electrons available at the end of their chemical chains, and so are oxidized rapidly. Interestingly, sucrose, table sugar, will not work. Sucrose is a combination of glucose and fructose, but the way that chemical bond is formed takes up the free electrons at the ends of both chemical chains. Sucrose is not a reducing sugar. But water boiled down with fruits, dates, or honey and agave, all work well, and of course powdered fructose. Citrus doesn’t have a lot of fructose anyway, but the acids in citrus are also going to also going to make the vat less alkaline, so it’s not recommended.

So the sugars bonds with the oxygen, then the OH from the pickling lime reacts with the resulting molecules. Eventually the reducing agent gets used up: the sugar is turned into an acid and so is no longer a reducing agent. Addition of acid will change the Ph of the vat. The enemy of the indigo vat is air, because that re-introduces oxygen into the vat, which turns the indoxl back into indigo, and uses up the reducing sugars. Less introduction of air into the vat means a longer dyeing session. The vat needs to be kept warm, so that those molecules move around and react with each other, but not so warm that the reactions don’t take place. (The traditional fermentation vats would be at the right temperature anyway, to maintain the environment for the yeasts and bacterias.)

*So it should all be the same color if it’s all the same indigo molecule. Yes. Except if the indigo is precipitated from a plant source, it’s not going to be 100% indigo. There will be other molecules from the plant and the surrounding soil in there as well. Depending on what they are can change the appearance of the color. Also, depending on what fiber is being used the color will appear differently, because of the way that indigo bonds with the space within the fiber. If it’s lustrous like silk or matte like cotton it will appear differently. Depending on how alkaline the solution is, the protein fibers of silk or wool can be damaged. Depending on how well the fiber is worked in the vat will also effect how the color appears, based on how thoroughly the indoxyl is actually worked in or not.

I’ve spent about a month since my indigo class trying to get answers to my question, and I finally feel pretty satisfied that I’ve learned what I wanted to know. This process has also shined a light on the fact that so many natural dye recipes are just that, recipes, without divulging the science and available technology behind them. My hope is to demystify the processes so I can dye with confidence and reasonable expectations. Cochineal, you’re next!

Plying is Blending

 Sally Williams

 Blog

Malabrigo Nube roving Indiecita colorway

During my candy-dyeing experiment, I made roving that I was pleased with, but once I’d spun it and plied it with itself, I didn’t like the resulting yarn. I couldn’t find anything on the interwebs about how color changes through plying the same colorway. There are numerous examples of plying with neutrals, and there’s this nice Knitty article about how color changes when drafting vs. plying. So this experiment is to try and sort out how color changes through plying within the same colorway.

Here’s my singles laid out for plying: (from left to right) a single, chain-ply three-ply, two-ply, and three-ply.

Singles for plying

Here they are plied:

Roving, single, two-ply, chain-ply three-ply, three-ply

The three-ply appears obviously different. But the proof is in the pudding (or as Rachel says, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting), so I did some swatching:

Single ply yarn

I didn’t really enjoy spinning this roving because it was a bit felted and didn’t draft very well. This resulted in a slubby single, but knit up I like the texture the slubs add. The colors and striping are the same as the roving. So if I like how it looks as a single, any plying is going to modify the colors and texture.

Two-ply

This swatch ended up being the most dynamic, color-wise. The areas of high contrast (the yellow bits) give it a marled look. Depending on the project, this could add a great deal of interest, or just make it busy. There is some color striping but it’s pretty random. The areas of low contrast, with blues plied with each other, are less vibrant than the same color in the single.

Two-ply close-up: muted blues

Two-ply close-up: marled yellows

The chain-plied three-ply I expected to maintain the striping of the single swatch, just with thicker yarn, but the plying softened the color changes, and actually muted the colors:

Chain-ply three-ply

I picked the three most contrasting singles for the three-ply to try and get the maximum color variation:

Three-ply

The color changes have been blended out, so while there are areas of different color, the overall effect is a very gradual shift. Except for one spot where all the slubs lined up, the slubbiness is gone too. I have an automotive background, so this really reminds me of a three-phase alternator, so made to cut down on the low-spots in alternating current and provide a smooth, constant flow:

It’s all about the math!

So: when plying with the same colorway, the ply is going to change the color. A two-ply will only have half of each each single, a three-ply will only show a third of each single. I definitely should have swatched the single I’d spun from my candy-dyed roving to see if I liked it as-is. Swatch early, swatch often!

Guild Challenge: The Electric Kool-aid Fiber Test Results

 Sally Williams

 Blog

The test results are in! At our February Guild meeting, everyone brought their projects from the Kool-aid dye challenge.

Here are the winners, as voted by the Guild members:

Leaf shawl, from different strengths of yellow #6, then overdyed to mitigate the obvious stripes. Lovely.

Leaf shawl, from different strengths of orange, then overdyed to mitigate the obvious stripes. Lovely.

Saori scarf woven on rigid heddle loom, using blue and red dyes for a purple effect.

Grand prize winner. All colors used. Too adorable!

Here are some examples from people who have dyed with Kool-aid before, and know that it takes a lot of dye to get a lot of color:

Child’s jacket made from mitered squares. Love the intense colors.

“Sunset Colors” yarn. The turquoise shade is great.

Knit cowl. The charcoal grey tones down the vibrant colors.

Sophisticated roving with color blending.

A pair of green and blue hats.

Here are some examples of using less dye to nice effect:

Knit cowl with pastel colors and grey alpaca for a tweedy look.

Nuño felted sky blue cloth with lavender undertones.

Tea cozy topped with knit flowers, which were hand painted with Kool-aid, just as one would marzipan.

Some excellent examples of blending with neutrals:

The same hat-and-mitt set, two ways.

Knit socks, blue and orange. The heathered blue tones down the orange.

Felted bag with sheep. Lined and reversible!

What did I end up doing? My initial attempt at using Kool-aid ended with yarn that I hated. I went off on a tangent and dyed a lot of fiber with candy. I made this project bag. I got Spinner’s Block. I got over it. And in the 11th hour, I spun and dyed this:

Targhee two-ply, dyed with a jawbreaker, tic-tacs and sprinkles, then gradient dyed with red-to-blue Kool-aid.

I didn’t win, but I learned a lot, including an appreciation for dying spun yarn, not just wool. Up next: bring on the natural dyes!

Dyeing with Candy

 Sally Williams

 Blog

Somewhere in between my Guild’s Kool-aid dye challenge and my obsession over sprinkle-dyed yarn, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought “Maybe I can dye yarn with actual candy sprinkles.”

On the face of it, it’s not that crazy of an idea: it’s the same food grade acid dyes that are in the different packets of Kool-aid, along with some extra sugar, etc., that can be washed out in the rinse. After some test runs, I’m happy to report that, yes, you can dye yarn and roving with candy, and get some pretty cool results. There are some caveats here: some candies work great, some work not-at-all, and some are just not worth the trouble. It’s going to be cheaper and more controllable if you just use your favorite acid dye, but if you’re looking for something to do with candy besides eat it, this is a thing, and a pretty interesting thing at that. This would also be a great Valentine’s gift for the knitter/spinner in your life who has everything. (That’s a joke, they obviously need more fiber.)

The candy aisle

I went to my local supermarket and shopped in their bulk candy aisle, which is extensive, and bought things I thought would be cool/effective in dyeing: jawbreakers, candy bracelets, red hots hearts, candy sprinkles, Lifesavers, tic-tacs, a bag of candy-coated, chocolate-covered sunflower seeds (yes, that did go horribly wrong. Sort of.) I didn’t buy any jelly beans (expensive!) or anything gummi (washing out gelatin) or anything else chocolate.

Jawbreaker, tic-tacs and sprinkles

I started out with 2oz of superwash Merino in a just-simmering water bath with a splash of vinegar, and added a jawbreaker, some tic-tacs, and some sprinkles, and I had pretty good results. There was too much fiber for the amount of dye, and the jawbreaker left some weird candy pieces even after the rinse.

Washed and dried

The Lifesavers were a disappointing bust. One takeaway is that translucent candy doesn’t require a lot of dye, and it just dissipates in the water without doing much of anything. Likewise the Nerds, the candy bracelets, the lemon heads, the colored sugar sprinkles, all didn’t contain enough dye to do anything. So too with the gobstoppers, the small version of the jawbreakers.

Lifesavers and 1oz Shetland roving

Lifesavers. Meh.

Surprisingly, the sweethearts candies performed like bath fizzies, and had a lot more dye in them than one would have thought. This is when I learned the real secret of candy-dyeing: it’s got to take a certain amount of time for the candy to dissolve in order for it to have deep color penetration, and it’s got to be in direct contact with the fiber. Just floating around in the water will result in washed out colors.

1oz Shetland roving, 1oz Llanwegnog handspun with Sweethearts, red hots and sprinkles

Melting and dyeing

Rinsed and dried

Because I had to know, I did dye some more superwash Merino with the candy chocolate sunflower seeds. Several things: I wouldn’t do this with anything but superwash, because I had to rinse it in hot dish-soapy water five times before it was reasonably chocolate-free. I inadvertently dumped the whole bag into the dye pot, and it resulted in a mostly chocolate brown colorway. When I let it cool there was hardened grease on the surface. I’m assuming it’s the palm kernel oil or what-have-you, but it was like skimming the fat off a pot roast. Also, there were sunflower seeds everywhere. (I think I was thinking, “less chocolate, less mess.”) BUT. Spinning this stuff up, it feels like cashmere. The fat content must have coated the fibers, because it’s simply a dream to spin. And it looks a lot like chocolate. I can’t not recommend this, especially if you have superwash sitting around not doing anything.

Superwash Merino dyed with candy-coated chocolates

Chocolately handspun

For a Valentine’s project, or a kid’s project, or just because you’re curious like I am, definitely go try dyeing up some fiber with candy.

Additional candy-dyed rovings, washed and dried

Get Carded Sideways

 Sally Williams

 Blog

In one of the rabbit-warrens of the internet I stumbled across this blog blurb by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot) about sending fiber through your drum carder sideways. I immediately alerted Rachel, that this might be a thing. We had to put it to the test.

I started with a Corriedale batt that I’d already sent through the carder normally:

Corriedale batt

I split it in half and sent one half through again sideways:

What! That orientation is wrong!

This is the result. The sideways batt feels thicker and fluffier. I should also note that the fiber piled up in the middle of the drum instead of being spread out evenly.

Left, standard carding, right, sideways carding

As a different test, I sent an assortment of different staple lengths and fibers through. Longwool, and very crimpy short wool. I didn’t pick the crimpy short wool apart.

Sideways potpourri. This makes it scientific.

Here’s the resulting batt. Then I spun it all up.

Assorted wools batt

Rachel here: Excuse me while I butt into Sal’s post. First of all can I just echo the WTFness of this sideways drumcarding development. Imagine me sort of open mouthed and wondering wha??? and ??? And thinking, well if the Yarn Harlot AND Judith McKenzie say this is The Done Thing, well….

Like Sal, I had to try this sideways drum carding myself. Sal has already described what happens–smaller, fluffier batts. That’s what I found too. Instead of thick and sometimes compacted batts you get fluffy rolags, like the ones you would make on hand cards–but bigger.

These were very easy to spin, like rolags. There was none of that peeling apart and fussing around with a big batt. It was all the good aspects of a hand carded rolag, only bigger and no sore wrists.

Some of the fiber I used was polwarth/silk roving that’s been in my stash for awhile. It opened up nicely when carded sideways and was a breeze to spin.

Lastly I put some scoured fleece (just washed, undyed, still a bit of a mess) through sideways. Here I didn’t see a huge difference putting unprocessed fleece through sideways. The batts were about the same. Having said that, once I get to the stage where I’m going to blend some of this fleece with another fiber or other colours, I’ll be doing that sideways. I like those big, fat rolags!

Longwool single, twist set

Sally here again: I agree with Rachel, it does make easy-to-spin batts, especially with the longwool blend I tried. I suspect this may be because, by sending the wool through sideways, I’m actually spinning on the fold with the long fibers. I was also able to maintain some of the crimpy locks, which would have been carded apart going through aligned. I think this is definitely a great way to do an art batt.

Test single, both standard carding method and sideways

When I was spinning the batt that was half normal/half sideways, I noticed a definite difference in how the yarn felt while spinning, which I would attribute to a worsted vs. woolen preparation. The sideways portion looked like it was going to have more of a halo due to the fibers not being lined up. If I look very closely, they may be slightly fuzzier, but after washing and setting the twist on the single, there is really very little difference.

So what do you think, Rach, is this actually a thing? My take, it’s definitely not NOT a thing!

Rachel: Sal, I have to agree with you. Not a Thing. I wouldn’t advocate a sideways-only approach to drumcarding. If you want to spin rolags, yes go sideways. If you want to open up some compacted roving, go sideways. But sideways only? I’m not so sure about that.

What I would suggest is being careful about how much fiber you load onto your drumcarder. Don’t overload.

Resort Wear for the Rest of Us

 Sally Williams

 Blog

Spring comes early in Western Oregon, but every year it seems like it’s never soon enough. About the time that fashion house resort wear comes out, we are all here dreaming of just a little sunshine.

Alas, I will not be traveling to St. Kitts this month. But really, not alas, I’m perfectly happy right where I am, albeit a little vitamin D-deficient. Rachel jokes that summer wear in England consists of an assortment of sweaters, [Rachel: I’m not joking.] and similarly, resort wear in Oregon would look about the same. But I like the idea of resort wear, in that it conjures up images of warm sand, and water, and blindingly blue, blue sky.

Sunny Sky batt; singles; seahorse buttons

Spinning up Sunny Sky batt

One of the things about living in a wet climate is that there is a certain amount of practicality involved in dressing, especially since no one really bothers with an umbrella. Another thing is that, in the winter, day after day after day, everything around you is a washed-out grey. I’m not a fan of seasonal fashion trends for trends’ sake, but I do think garments-as-optimism has merit, so these resortwear lines have me thinking: if we all had a few sunshine-and-beaches inspired garments and accessories, we might be able to fake tan our way into spring.

To that end, here are some patterns up in the queue:

Léger pattern by Espace Tricot

Turnstone Pullover by Alexis Winslow

Nautical Jumper by Claire Montgomerie [Rachel’s favorite]

Selbu Sea Horse Mittens by Tori Seierstad

Crocheted tote

So even though I’m not jetting off with my bikini and caftan, I can still stuff my beach tote with a towel (not a bad idea, really), sunglasses (good for five minutes at a time) and a good book (Powell’s!), put on a classic boat neck sweater, and keep my hands warm and dry inside some beach-motif mittens. Sunshine is a state of mind.

Color Resolutions 2015

 Sally Williams

 Blog

It’s a few days into 2015, and I’ve found a couple of things that I want to do this year…maybe I will also finish last year’s projects, but who knows?

Pasture

The first one I’ve actually started, based on the idea of this Sky-a-Day scarf. I’m calling it my “Grass is Always Greener” project. Using my drop spindle and hand cards, I’m going to color-blend and spin about 3yds of fiber each day, based on the color of the pasture out in front of our house. I’m hoping that not only will this make me better with the hand cards and the drop spindle (it should), but also show me just when it goes from being drab and winter-y around here to being so green that it hurts your eyes. And then in the summer when it starts to get brown again from the lack of rain, because every year these things sneak up on me. At the end of the year I’m going to chain-ply my singles into the continuous color order, and knit something.

Color blending on hand cards

Rolags

The other project I want to try is based on these yarns I found at one of Portland’s finest LYS, which are both (I believe) sprinkle-dyed, but to an extreme. After my weeks and weeks of messing around with kool-aid dying, I’ve finally become interested in dying yarn, and not just locks or roving.

Commercial sprinkle-dyed yarns

Sprinkle-dyed yarn, detail

Here is a link to sprinkle-dying from Lotus Knits. It’s in three parts and very informative. Stay tuned in 2015 for progress reports!

Guild Challenge: The Electric Kool-aid Fiber Test, Part 1

 Sally Williams

 Blog, Uncategorized

Jumping off point

We received our new guild fiber challenge at the October meeting. It’s pretty straightforward: dye some fiber with some Kool-aid, and make something out of it. The only caveat is that the finished project must show some of the original color of the Kool-aid we used. We were given 4oz of Polworth roving and a couple of packets of Kool-aid to start us along. The final projects are due at the February 2015 guild meeting.

This project is a lot more open ended than the last one, where we had an upper limit of fiber and assigned colors to start out with, and for which my project won a prize. Because of that, I’ve been at a bit of a loss as to which direction to go. My tendency to overthink things isn’t helping. In fact, I’ve been overthinking this for almost two months now.

We were given a piece of paper with Kool-aid dying directions, and the link to this Knitty article. It’s like any other acid-dying, with the added bonus of Kool-aid already containing citric acid. I searched Ravelry for some Kool-aid dyed projects for inspiration, and I found this hat, which uses yarn that is gradient-dyed. She also has a nice blog post about gradient-dying. This is a pretty cool technique, but I’ve talked to a lot of my fellow guild members, and they all seem to think they’re going to dye their yarn after it’s spun. I don’t want to show up with the same project as someone else.

Saxarocks' gradient-dyed Chyrsanthemum Hat; pattern by Xandy Peters

Saxarocks’ gradient-dyed Chrysanthemum Hat; pattern by Xandy Peters

I also considered trying this shibori dying and weaving technique that Rachel did, but my loom is in limbo right now, so until I have a place to set it up, no weaving for me.

I decided to go with the challenge name itself for inspiration, based on The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, about author and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey (from Oregon!). I’ve read this book, along with Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey also has a book called Sometimes a Great Notion, which I bought at Powell’s and have started to read. It’s really, really great, and I regret not reading I sooner, and my finished project will definitely reflect this book in some way.

In the meantime, I’ve embraced the spirit of these books, and put my 4oz of roving in a dye pot along with my Kool-aid, just to see what would happen:

Sprinkle dying

Sprinkle-dyed roving

It’s pretty, but one packet to one ounce of roving did not saturate the roving at all, and I’m left with a lot of white parts. I ended up blending the different resulting color ways on my drum carder, and then spun it according to color for a self-striping effect. This is what I ended up with, 275 yards of 2ply dk weight:

Weird pastel yarn

Verdict? I hate it. The colors are flat. Back to the drawing board.

Intentional Color Pooling: faux Ikat

 Sally Williams

 Blog

When the Early Fall ’14 issue of Vogue Knitting made it to my mailbox, I found a pretty interesting hand painted yarn creation that I wanted to experiment with:

Ikat wrap, Vogue Knitting Early Fall 2014

It’s made using yarn from Prism, and the swatching process is pretty specific to get the colors to pool in the right places. Other than that it’s a pretty simple stockinette/reverse stockinette basket weave pattern.

Detail of Ikat wrap

I have quite a bit of white Shetland roving that I got back from one of the local mills here recently, and as soon as I have some free time I want to spin some of it up in order to experiment with hand painting yarn. I usually do single color kettle-dying fleece: I really love the depth of color I can get by blending on my drum carder, so single color batches just make sense. But this has never stopped me from buying hand-painted roving, or yarn for that matter, so I may as well make my own.

I’ve checked on Ravelry, and one Raveler has already hand painted some yarn in custom colorways to make this project, and not only did it turn out great, but there are great project notes. It got me thinking that I might be able to manipulate some commercial hand painted yarn that I’ve had forever, in a similar way.

indigonightowl’s Ikat wrap

Malabrigo color Sotobosque

I bought this a long time ago, and in my mind it was going to end up as some sort of poncho, like the one Clint Eastwood wore in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And the color way reminds me of Molly Ringwald. This is probably a weird pop cultural mashup, but it makes perfect sense in my mind. Unfortunately, when this yarn is knit up in a regular pattern, the color pooling make the garment look camouflage, which is not what I’m after at all. (Again, thanks to Ravelry and finished garment pictures!)

Deciphering dye patterns

I think I can get a similar effect as the Ikat wrap if I keep the pink parts separated from the brown parts. And I will have my Molly Eastwood wrap. Stay tuned!

n.b. This a serape, not a poncho