Dyeing my own yarn.

In an earlier post I mentioned that Knit Picks was discontinuing the Felici yarn I loved so much. This was quite frustrating because most self striping yarns come in 100g skein and cost a ton of $$$$ (at least for me). Felici came in 50g skeins which work perfectly for my non-sock knitting ways. A while ago I checked a book out from the library called Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece by Gail Callahan. This was a total game changer for me. Towards the beginning of the book are instructions for dyeing with food coloring, in rainbow colors. I was instantly intrigued. I have a thing for rainbow yarns. I find the color transitions fascinating.

I had a rather large skein of Fisherman's Wool left from my dryer ball experiments. I wound that off into 20 yd. mini skeins. I soaked them in warm soapy water (I used Dawn) overnight, then the next day for 30 minutes in a vinegar water solution. I also had some skeins reserved for playing with Kool Aid. Those I didn't soak in vinegar because the powder mix is already acidic. After that I followed Gail's instructions in the "Dying your own "Color Wheel"" section. All the supplies I used were yarn (has to be a protein fiber), Dawn dishsoap, white vinegar, mason jars, food coloring from the cupboard, water and the microwave. Best part is, everything was food safe so I wasn't risking ruining any dishes. Unless I broke a jar, which I didn't.

The pile on the top left is my rainbow yarns. I didn't get a good picture of them while they were drying. The pile on the right are my Kool Aid yarns and the bottom left was what I did with the leftover yarn and dye stock.

Oh! and the speckled yarn in the pile of rainbow yarns was me trying to make a polka dot yarn. I put drops of food coloring directly on the yarn that had been soaking in vinegar.

I might have gotten bored in the middle of the night and put this in my mom's purse to find the next day. I have impulse control issues.

This was my second attempt at the food coloring expirement. I used a fingering weight yarn out of Peruvian Highland Yarn. This is the same type of yarn that I use when I do colorwork. It took the dye beautifully!! Those mini balls of yarn were my first experiment, just wound up.

This has opened so many possibilities for me, I'm pretty sure part of my brain exploded from excitement.

A couple of items knit crocheted by my mom using my hand dyed yarn. She's such a good sport!

BRAINS!!!!!

While Basil was sitting in the naughty corner (see previous post) I discovered another great pattern. Voodoo You Love Me? by Susan Claudino. It was love at first sight. I started making it with some sock yarn I had randomly bought. (I have quite a bit of yarn I've acquired from impulse buys). I wasn't completely in love with the redness of the yarn, but the doll was turning out so cute! My coworkers saw what I was working on and they fell in love with the pattern as well. I decided to name mine zombies instead of voodoo dolls....because I like zombies more...and you can have more fun with them. You'll see what I mean.

My first zombie ended up pinned to a cubicle wall at work while he awaited the completion of his legs. Problem was 1. I'd lost the yarn and 2. We were having fun with him being pinned to the wall, so it took about a month for those two little legs to get done. He did end up rather snazzy though.

Once he was done I immediately cast on for another version. This time it was purple. Because that's what his future owner requested. This poor thing gets picked on a lot at work when we get bored. Fortunately he's a lot tougher than I though he would be. If you squish his head right it looks like an onion.

Next I decided to see what would happen if you used SPARKLE yarn. I had originally bought this yarn to teach my sister how to knit with. After using it I've realized that this is not the easiest yarn to work with. It really hurts your hands after a while. That may be me holding the yarn too tight though. Anywho, the last of the first bunch ended up with shorter and skinnier arms because I wanted to see how it would look with icord arms. I had to make them half as long as the other dolls because it just looked weird with it longer.

I think she's pretty spiffy.

After this was all done I had another co-worker ask me to make her a doll too. Except instead of fingering weight (which I'd been using up to that point) she wanted me to use worsted weight.

You can't really tell but this guy is HUGE compared to the other ones. Easily twice the size. I'm awfully fond of the stitched eyebrow.

Apparently, her kids fell in love with the doll. This lead to two more dolls.

(There's a Kleenex box behind them, so you get an idea of how big they are).

I don't know if it was intentional or not, but I love how these yarns look together. Not matchy, but not clashy either.



I mentioned at the beginning that you can have more fun with zombies. Whilst I was in the middle of all these projects I had a coworker request a doll, like several other had before her. I was expecting to make one very similar to the ones I had made before.

Then she handed me neon yarn....

And a bunch of gears to use for the eyes.....

Could I make it have an exposed brain?.....

And I was welcome to keep those gears and use them for WHATEVER I wanted.....

This is what she ended up with.

I have to say, one of the funnest toys I've made yet. Who knew that kitchen cotton made such great brains!!!

Wow it's been a while

I didn't realize how long it's been since I posted on here. I'll have to take this in bits and pieces. First off I have discovered the joys of making toys. It's just so much fun!!! The pattern that lured me onto this path of awesomeness was Sherman, The Square Dancing Stegosaurus. I didn't feel an overwhelming need to deal with durnig the stripes manually, so I used Felici self striping yarn. I fell in love with this yarn doing this project. Which is really sad, because Knit Picks is discontinuing the yarn. Rude faces.

As you can see, Sherman is adorable. The spikes were kind of obnoxious. Especially since my furry little troublemaker helper liked to steal them. I lost three of the smaller ones. I found them under my bed with her stash of socks a couple of months later.

She has a history of trying to "help". My nephew loved Sherman so much I told him I'd make him his own dinosaur. After looking at the Dancing Dinosaur patterns, he picked out Terence the Tap Dancing T-Rex. I cheated again and used self striping yarn.

This little guy is ADORABLE and I love how the limbs ended up. Naturally, I had to finish the set and so I started on Basil, The Boogie Woogie Brontosaurus. Sadly, I ran into some issues.

Once I got to this part using double pointed needles became very cumbersome. So I switched to a really long circular needle to use the magic loop method. Problem? The needle I switched to was a size smaller and I didn't think it'd be an issue until I saw the size of the head.

The small head annoyed me, so he got put in the naughty corner until I got over it. I did have a slightly morbid/bored moment and came up with a rather epic tale of Basil and Terence getting in a ferocious battle. Basil won, but at a cost. Sadly, he's missing a leg and part of his tale. Fortunately, my nephew didn't really question it when I gave it to him. These dinosaurs were designed by the fabulous Rebecca Danger. So many monsters, so little time. I also made a couple of her bunny nuggets. Tragically, their pictures seem to have been eaten by zombies. More on that subject next time. ;)