More Dye results

Hopefully you aren't sick of the sight of my dyed yarns yet.  This is the last batch for a while as the huge, enormous, humungous pile of planned projects, both knitted and sewn, is starting to alarm me.  I had a spare evening when I was too tired to knit or sew about a month or so ago.  I decided to match stash yarns to patterns and put them into bags, then to match fabrics to patterns for sewing and put them in a crate.  This was a mistake.  I've been panicking about the sheer number of projects planned ever since.  And I want to do them all, I really do, but next week I have to go back to work and I won't have nearly as much time to sew and knit.  So it all feels a bit overwhelming. I'm trying to calmly complete the things I've started and  I am making headway on that; a gift knitting item was completed today, as were two pairs of leggings that only needed coverhemming, and a skirt had its button sewed on (it had only been in the workroom for a month waiting for this to be done).   Making new and pretty yarns didn't help the whole "getting the project list down" thing.  I tell you, I'm my own  worst enemy.  I need to win the lottery so I can stay home all day and work on my projects.   

But enough of my project panics.  Here are the pretty yarns created yesterday during my dying day with a friend.   Mine were all dyed with Wiltons food colouring.   Some of hers were done using non-toxic acid dyes. 

From left to right: 
75% merino/25% silk sock yarn dyed with brown, harvest gold (golden yellow with a touch of leaf green) and ivory.  The dyes were painted on using a decorators brush.

75% merino/25% nylon sock yarn.  The brown is Wiltons, the turquoise/teal is three packs of blue Kool Aid with some teal Wiltons mixed in to darken the mixture.  The dyes were mixed in two jam jars and the skein ends pushed into the jars, with the middle bit hanging between and left bare.  I was a bit worried I'd burn the bit that was left hanging out but it seemed to work OK. 

The middle skein was lilac Cygnet 4 ply sock yarn unravelled from a cardigan that didn't work well.  This was dyed with black Wiltons, and was just pushed into the dye bath.  I hadn't used enough water so not all the yarn took the colour.  The deep aubergine shade is really lovely and the flashes of undyed/partially dyed yarn really please me.

The leftmost pinkish red skein is another merino/silk mix yarn and was painted with christmas red, rose, hot pink (rose with a touch of red) and mulberry (christmas red with a touch of royal blue).

The last skein on the right was an accident.  I didn't put enough water in the dye bath when trying to make a solid dark red and I think I used too much vinegar.  The yarn that went in the bath first took all the dye and it was exhausted before I could push the rest into the bath.  So I have a raspberry ripple skein instead of a red one.  Very pretty, but it just goes to show that all my dying is a happy accident.  Its a lot of fun, but I couldn't be relied on to produce an actual planned colour. 

I didn't get a photo of my friend's completed yarns, but she made a fabulous dark purple shading to a deep raspberry (intended to be four shades of purple/red but it ran together accidentally in the dye bath), a variagated red, purple and pink which was  a second attempt at a striped yarn in purple and red, but some of the dye came out after it was cooked leading to one end going pink and she hates pink with a passion.  So one of her grandaughters will be getting a very flashy hat and sock set for Christmas I think.  Both those were using her acid dyes, one  was set in the microwave, and one was done on the stove top.  She also dyed a brown and yellow skein, using the same
Wiltons dyes as I did, but using a small brush and choosing to use a much larger amount of the harvest gold dye compared to the brown and ivory.  She named her colourway banoffee pie.

These are just as they came out of the dye baths, hung to dry.  I am expecting that when I reskein them they will look even nicer.   But I've not had time to do that yet.  I did wind the bulk dying I did at the weekend into yarn cakes ready to knit from, and was really pleased with how they looked.