Now that it is spring, (and nearly summer), it is warm
enough to dye ! I like to batch my Procion-dyed cellulosic fibers outside, when
it is over 75 degrees out, and yesterday was set to hit 86. Which, for the
beginning of May, is strange. Everything in the garden grew 6 inches yesterday!
I have been possessed by gradient yarns, and the idea of
smooth color progressions on linen yarn. I wanted to try my hand at making my
own, so I dug out my old knitting machine and tried to knit a blank on it. That
was an exercise in frustration, as my machine was not cooperative, and I despaired
of achieving my aim.
Over the winter I had designed and knitted two lace vests in some white alpaca/wool
yarn, and dye-painted them with acid dyes, which was very fun and satisfying,
so I wanted to try the same process with my favorite Euroflax linen yarns. I
managed to knit one vest, and then did some research and found this lovely
gizmo: NKOK Singer knitting machine
This is marketed as a toy, and it is a wild pink plastic,
but does work surprisingly well for its cost, which was an amazing $23. As I
intended to use it for knitting dye-able lengths only, it was a bargain, and
certainly a useful item. It worked pretty well, after I found some clamps to
attach it to the table and got the hang of the tension and speed of rotating
the little crank. My arms got very tired! And I had to untwist the resulting
tube many times, but after 2 hours, I had a useable length of knitted yarn. After
knitting up two skeins of linen into 6 ft snakes of yarn, I was ready to mix up
the dyes.
I wanted a progression from green to turquoise to blue, with
smooth color transitions, and being a more casual and not so scientific dyer, I
was not sure which of the 5 blues I should use. I have a lot of Procion MX dye
powder which I have used over the years to dye cotton fabric, and loved the
color I saw at the Prochem booth at MQX show, which was Intense Blue 406, but I
also had Bright Blue 404. I figured I could use all four colors and see how
they turned out, so I made up 3 cups water to 6 Tsp urea, and made concentrate
as follows:
1 tsp Brightest Green 711 in ½ cup Urea water
3 tsp Turquoise 410 in 1 cup ureawater
2 tsp 406 Intense blue in a cup of ureawater
1 tsp 404 Bright blue in ½ cup ureawater
Then I divided my dye into 13 plastic cups which I numbered.
So #1 was all green,
2: 7 Tbsp green and 2 tbsp turquoise
3: 5 Tbsp green, 5 Tbsp turquoise
4: 2 Tbsp green , 7 Tbsp turquoise
5: Turquoise
6: 7 Tbsp Turquoise,
2 Tbsp 406
7: 5 Tbsp turquoise, 5 Tbsp 406
8: 2 Tbsp Turquoise, 7 Tbsp 406
9: all 406 Intense blue
10: 7 Tbsp 406 and 2 Tbsp 404
11: 5 Tbsp 406, 5 Tbsp 404
12: 2 Tbsp 406 and 7 Tbsp 404
13: all 404
Meanwhile, the yarn and vest ( and some PFD cotton I had in
my stash) were soaking in Soda ash and water
( ½ cup soda ash to ½ gallon water).
Once I was ready, I squeezed out the soda ash solution, and laid
out the vest on top of the fabric, and , using a sponge to apply the dye, with
gloved hands, began applying the dye in numerical order, onto the vest. One of
the “scarves”( 500 yards of Fibra natura laceweight linen) I divided into 12 equal sections with locking
markers, and dyed that one last,
skipping the green so I went directly to jar #2. The other “scarf” was one
skein of Euroflax, and I did a more spontaneous progression. Leftover dye was
poured on some remaining white cotton I had in my stash.
Using a sponge was great, as I had more control over the
placement of the color, and could dab it on, blending the colors as I went.
I dyed everything in plastic bins so I could let it “batch” for 24 hours and
remain wet and undisturbed. No one wants cats with blue paws!
Tomorrow: washout and dry!! It is so hard to wait!!
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