Sometimes..... things just work out right

You set out to do one thing, and it doesn't work out, but the result is better than you could ever have hoped. 

I have plans with my friend later in the week to dye some yarns but we decided to just dye small lots on that occasion.  Since I really wanted to have a go at making a matched set of bulk skeins for a large sweater project, I decided to do that today in between sewing a skirt. The yarn is blue faced leicester double knitting weight from Woolyknits.  I had a kilo of yarn, and I dyed it all with a particular pattern in mind for the finished yarn, a very complicated cabled dress with a removable roll neck collar.  And I really wanted purple as my current purple sweater is on its last legs, chiefly because I virtually lived in it for three winters in a row. 

And voila... this is the result, or at least some of it. 


This was almost an entire pot of violet Wiltons cake dye.  There was maybe a teaspoon or so out of the pot from previous dying events. 

I followed a different set of instructions this time since there was such a lot of yarn to dye at once.  I split the yarn into 100g (ish) skeins and dyed five at one time in my very largest jam pan.  The dye was measured super carefully into a jug so I knew exactly how much liquid dye I had.  For each dye bath I used exactly half the dye solution, together with 7.5 pints of water. 

The dye bath was made up cool in the jam pan and then half of yarn added to the pan which was heated up to 150 degrees F and simmered there for ten minutes without any vinegar.   I used a jam thermometer to ensure I had the exactly correct temperature and could replicate the exact environment for the second batch.
 
After the ten minute simmer, the vinegar was added.  I used a quarter cup measure of vinegar to each 100g of yarn and I added it slowly, around the edges of the dye bath, and stirred as I added.  I held the yarn away from the vinegar solution with a slotted spoon as you have to be very careful not to get the vinegar directly onto the yarn or it will drive the dye in unevenly.   The dye didn't look like it was taking during the ten minute simmer.  However, once the vinegar went in, the dye leapt into the yarn, the dye bath cleared markedly and, in this particular case, I think the vinegar may have broken the colour (I couldn't have done this if I'd set out to of course) so it took up the constituent colours of the dye at different rates.  Also, I believe I had too much yarn in the dye bath at once so that the vinegar fixer didn't have room to move about enough and the yarn in the middle of the pile got very little dye fixing.  I did stir but I didn't want to felt the yarn and by this time I was raising the water temperature for the final setting of the dye.   Once the vinegar is in, the dye bath is heated to about 170-180F and held there until the dye exhausts.  Which it did in about ten minutes each time for this batch. 

The dyed yarn is left in the exhausted dye bath until cool, or at least cool enough to handle since I have very little patience and had to keep poking and prodding at it. 

Then I washed the first lot and hung it out to dry whilst I tried to replicate the dye on the second batch.  I am very pleased with the match between the dye lots.  They are hung in the photo so that  the first set are on the line  at the back, and the ones at the front are the second dye lot.  I think they are pretty close.

Its not what I set out to achieve, colour-wise, I was aiming for a solid bright purple.  However, I really love it.  I actually spent quite some time a while back trying to achieve this very effect on a skein of sock yarn and failed miserably on that occasion. 

It won't work at all for the pattern I was going to use the yarn for. BUT it will work fabulously for another Swirl cardigan and that may turn out to be more useful in terms of wearability than the dress I was planning, and will take much less time to knit.  So as soon as my yarn is dry I'll be winding it up into cakes and swatching to see if I can get gauge for a swirl.  And because I am so pleased with it, here are a couple of detail shots of one of the skeins so you can see the true loveliness of the colours. Also, because for once, my photos came out quite nicely.   The top one taken in sunlight on my white patio table (note the very cute cut out flowers) and the lower one is taken on the path in the garden, also in sunlight.