I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

I was in the local spinning/weaving/knitting store last weekend and happened to catch the owner while she was dyeing some yarns using natural dyes. I had lots of questions about materials and mordants and she suggested I try using turmeric as a gateway drug dye since it doesn’t need a mordant.

I put my plan into action this weekend, digging out an almost-full skein of Knit Picks Bare Superwash Merino DK that was left over from a sock project I just finished for Knit Picks.

I heated some water in a stockpot, added some turmeric (about 2 teaspoons for a 100g skein of yarn), and simmered the mixture for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, I soaked the skein of yarn in some warm water. I purposefully didn’t make much effort to ensure the skein was completely and evenly saturated because I was aiming for a mottled look so I didn’t want the dye to take up evenly throughout the skein.

I plunked the skein into the dye bath and simmered it for about 20-30 minutes.

Voila

I should probably mention here that I hate the color yellow with the heat of a thousand burning suns. But, although it’s hard to tell by the slightly off-color photo, the yarn turned out a rich, golden, honey-yellow color. Gorgeous!

I’ve already begun a project with the yarn since I couldn’t just tuck this beautiful skein away after it was dry.

A weekend of:

Sitting

Knitting

Buying

Dyeing

What are the advantages of living in a place that has unrelenting sun and hot-as-Hades temperatures in the summer?

You can set your dye using solar power alone:

I bet you thought I forgot to show you what I made from the yarn I knit up on the Ultimate Sweater Machine and dyed purple. Have no fear. My computer time has mainly been spent adjusting to a new laptop and the new Windows Vista operating system (which just totally saved my arse when I let the battery get too low *phew*). In any event, here are the particulars.

After dyeing the yarn as I described in this post, I unraveled it and wound it into a center pull ball:

Then I set about finding an appropriate pattern.

My first choice was the Marsupial Bag from the first Stitch ‘N Bitch book.

(I’m not sure why the color is so off in this photo — the yarn is purple, not blue.)

It’s a great design, but after I was quite a bit into the bag, I remembered all the reasons why I dislike knitting it. Those left twist stitches are a pain to work and I don’t like the line of loose ladders between them. So it was frogged.

Then I started a Sophie bag, but abandoned it before the base was completed.

For some reason, I was just not feeling the Sophie love.

In the end, I just made up the design as I went along.

After felting, I finished it off with a 70s-era daisy pin.

I have a little more than half the yarn left so I’m thinking of making a second little bag that moves from light to dark instead of dark to light.