Deep Smit

Oooh, am I in trouble!!! I am the queen of hobbies and I don’t need a new one. I sure hope everyone wants dyed bamboo for Christmas because that is what they are getting! Good news is, I have to wait at least 1 hour for the dye to set. Maybe I can get my Christmas knitting done during that time (or maybe I could do the dishes and laundry then).

I followed these directions using a G&K dye kit. Purple and red is my goal, let’s see if I can do it!

http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/lowwaterimmersion.shtml

Here is the yarn that I am overdying. I washed the yarn in Synthrapol to remove any dirt/oil/grim/finish from the yarn. The original color is kind of a yucky watermelon pinky red, but not for long...


Here is the yarn soaking in the dye. I mixed blue dye in 1 cup of room temp water and fushia dye in another container. I then poured the blue dye over 1/2 the yarn and the fushia dye over the other half. Next, I slowly poured enough water over the yarn to just barely submerge it, keeping track of how many cups of water were added. 2 cups with the dye and then another 7 cups to submerge it. I then mixed in 1 tsp soda ash for every cup of water in 1 cup of water. So 10 cups water total (2+7+1=10) and 10 tsp soda ash. Before adding the soda ash mixture, I let the dye mix with the yarn without stirring at all for about 5-10 minutes. I then slowly poured the soda ash mixture evenly over the yarn and let it set for about 90 minutes.

After rinsing the spent dye from the yarn in about 4 changes of water, I washed it in hot water again with about 1/2 tsp of synthropol and then rinsed it again in cold water until the water ran clear. And here is what emerged from the pot.





I am smitten, I am in deep smit.