Friday, August 17, 2018

Weekly Roundup - More Mommy and Me Yarn Dyeing

This week started with a fun Mommy and Me dyeing adventure.  Except this time we expanded beyond just Mommy and Lucky.  Lucky's friend, O, and his mom joined us to dye some cotton yarn with Tulip One Step Tie Dye.  I really love the cotton boucle from KnitPicks (affiliate link), and I know that the kids had a blast.


I covered my kitchen table with an Ikea shower curtain to protect it.  The presoaked cotton yarn was laid on top of plastic wrap so it would be easier to wrap up the yarn after the kids were done painting.


Lucky wore gloves while dyeing for the first time.  The purple nitrite gloves were comically large on the kids, but we were able to get their fingers in the correct position.  


The kids picked Orange, Fuschia, Red, and Teal.  I love the way these brights play off of each other.  You can find all four of these colors in the Tulip One Step Tie Dye "Luau" Kit (affiliate link).  I mixed the dye in the bottles that came with the kit, and then we poured some of the colors into plastic cups so they would have limited access to liquid at any given time. Any spills were easily caught by the yarn.  The boys used foam brushes to dab the dye onto the yarn in the patterns they wanted. 


When the boys were done painting their yarn, we wrapped it up in plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for a few days.  The yarn is still drying or else I'd share a finished picture of Lucky's yarn now.

As I was writing this Weekly Roundup, a photo popped up in my Facebook Memories from the first dye-a-long that I hosted.  I was pregnant with Lucky at the time, and it is fun to think that we've come full circle.

There was so much dye left over, that I ended up filming TWO "leftover dye" livestreams.  I should have a recap video up on the YouTube channel later this weekend to summarize all of the beautiful yarns that came from these four colors.

Overdyeing Roving

In Dyepot Weekly #64, I decided to overdye some pink WOTA roving from KnitPicks.  (Affiliate Link)  Some of the pink heathering shows through in the final yarn, and I am absolutely in love with how it turned out.  I decided to overdye it with blues, purples, and greens because I didn't want to play it completely safe.  The lime green color could have turned into an ugly brown, but I wanted to show that even with overdyeing you don't need to stick with complementary colors.  




Sun Dyeing

The summer has been H-O-T hot.  It is so hot that I don't really want to sit outside in the shade while the kids do water play too often.  I did decide, however, to take advantage of some of this heat and to try doing some sun dyeing outside.  

I did film a video of this project, and you can expect to see all of the details on the ChemKnits Tutorials YouTube channel sometime in September. This sneak peek was so poplar that I wanted to show everyone what the finished yarn looked like:



ChemKnits Chanukah 2018

Preorders for the ChemKnits Chanukah Miniskine Sampler are still open!  I'm not sure when I'll shut down preorders, but you really don't want to miss your chance to grab one.  I started dyeing the videos for this special week and they are AWESOME.  I will close the presale for the limited edition 100 g skein of sock yarn before I close pre-orders for the miniskein set.  So if you want a full skein wrapped up in your box don't wait too long!