Win-win

A weekend at the cottage: no TV, no internet, no phone, peaceful, sigh. Read another book and did a bit of dyeing as an experiment. I'm trying to get pale colours with some colour variation throughout.

First I wound two 50g skeins into one 100g skein, soaked it in water with a bit of detergent and vinegar in it.I'm trying to see if I can get the affect I want without having to hand dye it so I tied the large skein in a knot.I put it into a cold bath with a small amount of dye in it, about 1/2 the strength recommended by the Gaywool dye instructions (colour is Lily) and brought it up to the boil (this was not the recommended method). This took about 1/2 an hour and then I boiled it for 1/2 an hour and untied the knot near the end.

I have pretty good variation from a very, very pale colour (it's not white like it looks in the photo) up to a colour somewhat stronger than I wanted.

I tried it all again with another colour of blue, starting with the hot water (no sense in wasting it) in which the colour was supposed to set in 4 minutes. I put 2 50g knots in and then took the knots out after 3 minutes. I could have left the knots in longer because the colour variation is very slight. But there is some, which may show up in the knitting. I don't know enough about this to tell.

It's fun to play and see what happens. It's all knitable even if it doesn't turn out exactly as anticipated. A win-win situation.

-Deb