Sunday, May 16, 2010

Second Act

Remember the avocado dye bath from last week? Here's a shot of the yarn steeping in the dye pot. I put one of the off-white skeins in loose and one in a loose twist, hoping to get a variegated effect. I let them steep on heat for about 3 hours and then let the whole pot cool overnight before I took the yarn out.



From left to right, the marled wool/nylon blend, the loose off-white skein, and the twisted skein. It's fascinating how the color took so differently on each skein, even though they went in and came out at the same time!

The marled yarn is definitely "browner", even though one of the plies was the same color as the off-white. The off-white skeins are both more of a rosy brown, but the loose skein is much darker in saturation. The twisted skein varies from a shade lighter than the loose skein all the way to a pale rose. And while none of this yarn was anything I'd want to wear next to my skin, they are definitely a little coarser now. I probably could have avoided that by testing the pH of the water and dye bath, but I think a soak in a good wool wash or conditioning shampoo will probably improve the feel.


Charity yarn donations are continuing; Duffy brought me three big boxes of yarn last Westside Wednesday. I think this will just about fill up the car and I may have to rearrange some of the yarn to make it all fit. This should keep Mokihana and her group plenty busy making afghans for quite a while! I do need to get coordinate a delivery, maybe for next weekend, when Mokihana is home. She lives up on the mountain in Damascus; we haven't been up there in awhile so I want to pick a weekend with nice weather so we can enjoy the scenery!



I've been working on that set of #@!*% Golf Club Covers for Niece Jane and finally finished them up this morning, complete with bi-colored pompoms. I'll deliver these to her probably on Memorial Weekend. Her golf bag is lavender, so I hope these will coordinate with the color.




And last, but not least, some sweaters I picked up yesterday for unraveling. I went with ToolMan to Lowes for weed killer and persuaded him to swing into the Salvation Army store since it's on our way home. I went straight for the men's sweaters, which got me some very strange looks from the other shoppers, who were busy looking for shorts and t-shirts!

From top to bottom: a bohus-style lambswool from Woolrich in natural/black/red worsted weight, a lovely alpaca in natural/blue fingering weight but no maker's label, a v-neck natural grey cashmere/mink (!) fingering weight from Norm Thompson, and a green/grey/cream/pink argyle vest in merino/silk laceweight.

The prices on these were all less than $6 each, but they were having a 50% off everything sale, so the whole lot was only $10.50! I'll probably unravel all of them right away except the argyle vest. I think this will look really cute with a white shirt and my grey suit. Or maybe with my cream pants and pink shirt? Since it was only $2.50 on sale, I may just wear it out instead of reclaiming the yarn.

4 comments:

  1. By all means wear the argyle vest! You are such an inspiration with the recycling of the yarns. You rock!

    The avocado dye bath was quite interesting. Natural dyes are SUCH an art!

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  2. Conditioner will help correct the pH.

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  3. I love shopping Salvation Army for re-usable yarn. I've turned some ugly sweaters into pretty bags and hats. (All my early felting projects used yarn raveled from a horrific multicolored sweater...)
    The avocado dyeing is really interesting. I had never thought of that for a dye material.

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  4. Oh my gosh, the yarn!! I can't wait to give it to the gals in my group. We have another 3 blankets going with more on the way thanks to everyone's generosity. You just have NO idea what this means to us!

    One of the blankets that we made for a 15-year old boy with leukemia (sadly, he's not doing too well right now) gets cuddled around him every night when he goes to bed. He just loves it. We make these blankets for all ages and all are loved.

    One of the gals in our group has a grandpa who loves to wind yarn into balls, so when we get a tangled skein, off it goes to Grandpa. Now we're making a blanket for him too!

    Thanks again. See you soon!

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