THE COTTON DYE WORKSHOP

This is how cotton comes from the supplier. It has to be wound into skeins (demonstrated in a former blog post HERE), thoroughly washed in very hot water with super-detergent, rinsed, and spun out.



Here it is clean and damp, awaiting its turn in the dye vat.





But first it has to be soaked in washing soda.





There are stock dye solutions in the bottles, and the dyes are mixed in plastic cups. Don't worry, I never drink out of these!




Here is the cotton with freshly applied dye. It has to sit around for a while for the dye to set. So pretty!



Now comes the (groan) finishing process. First, a hot Synthrapol soak. Then a bath or two in hot detergent. Then several rinsings.




The goal is to have clear rinsewater like this!



After all that, things get pretty tangly!



Untangled and hung up to dry. But not finished! After drying comes a trip to the scanner, publishing to the website, balling up, and mailing off!


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INSPIRATIONS

There's a new crop of cotton crochet thread and cotton yarn blooming. I wanted to share with you some of the inspirations for the colorways I chose this time around. Shown above is "lotus".


Of course, this is "red rose"...


...and "kale"


And not to let plants have all the fun, I had to include a colorful mineral, "limonite".

These yarns, and more, are available for sale on my website. Click on the banner below!

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DISHCLOTH DIVERSION

Aunt Jane's flower shawl is almost finished. Right now it's a big pile of lumpy lilac, but in another week or so it will be a thing of breathtaking beauty. It will bloom. It is getting to be a bit of a cumbersome lapful to knit on, so I needed something smaller and more portable for traveling.

Enter the perfect portable project, the dishcloth. I saw this pattern for the crocheted Crazy Cloth on Ravelry, and was absolutely intrigued because I couldn't figure out how it was made. This really bugs me! So I had to make one!

The construction is pretty clever. It starts with the loop. The beginning of each row is actually at the center corner diagonally opposite from the loop, and each row dodges out to a side corner, returns back across the middle, over to the other corner, and finally back to the center. Way cool!

The pink and blue cloth at left is made from hand dyed Peaches & Creme, and the ecru cloth at right is from undyed sport weight cotton, and edged with the same cotton dyed in autumn colors. (Trust me, the sport weight cotton works better for a crocheted dishcloth).


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MAKEOVER

Yesterday was a day to dye for! (Sorry!) Really, I haven't dyed yarn in well over a year. The recession killed off yarn sales for a while, so I lived off the inventory for 2010. But business is picking up again, so it was time to dye up some new yarns.

Dyeing is kind of like knitting- begin with something boring, and make it into something beautiful. Of course I usually work with white yarn because it has the most potential and flexibility for adding color. Occasionally, though, I get a good deal on some colored yarn. As long as it isn't really dark, it's kind of fun to overdye it and see what can be done to make it pretty. I give it a makeover!

The photos above and below show the before and after pictures. The skeins are in the same relative positions. The coral red was especially challenging, but got turned into some pretty "valentine" yarn. All the wool is lace weight except the dark purple, which is DK (light worsted). These plus more are available for sale on my website HERE.



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AUNT JANE'S FLOWER SHAWL

Picnics in meadows with spring flowers and cow pies. Walks in ferny glens. Skinny dipping in cold mountain streams. Vacations on the Jersey shore. Hiking in the Swiss Alps. These are my best memories of my father's sister, Aunt Jane. She had a degree in botany from Mt. Holyoke college, way back in the day when women didn't do that. She was invariably generous, proper, polite, and patient. On the very rare occasions when she did get annoyed, her most extreme epithet was "Well! Mercy!"

She liked children, but never married or had any of her own. This worked out very well for my sister and me, because she lived nearby, and she liked spending time with us. She was constantly conspiring with my parents to take us on "outings"- usually picnics or hikes in wild places- which we city kids absolutely adored. It was from Aunt Jane I learned how to tell Dutchman's Breeches from Bleeding Hearts. She knew a lot about birds too, and so from her I also learned how to tell ibis from egrets, pipers from plovers. Her love of nature embedded itself in our hearts, and got passed on to the next generation- my and my sister's children- as well.

Aunt Jane taught me how to pee in the woods! Aunt Jane taught me to knit!!!!


As the years flew by, Aunt Jane moved to a retirement community, and arthritis slowed her down. My interest in knitting blossomed, and I made her a lace Faroese shawl to take the chill off those winter evenings in Pennsylvania. It seemed appropriate that it had little lace flowers on it! This is it on the blocking board. It was a beautiful soft wool, sort of plum colored. Aunt Jane loved it!

More years flew by, and Alzheimer's stole her memories. Aunt Jane gave away the shawl to an admiring stranger in an act of spontaneous generosity. I was sorry to lose it, but remain glad to know that someone somewhere loves it.


I'm in a shawl-making binge right now (have you guessed?). It's time to make another Faroese flower shawl. I'm making it out of the exact same wool, but this time it's lilac in color, and I'm going to place beads in the edging. Here is a photo, but it sure doesn't look like much now! I know it won't really "bloom" until after it is finished and blocked.

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A SHORT DETOUR

My daughter celebrated her 16th birthday this weekend. I crocheted these little doodads for her out of my hand dyed crochet thread. The camellia below is sewn to a hair clip. The pattern is available HERE. The pattern for the earrings above right is available HERE. The hand dyed crochet thread is available for sale HERE.

And since she is on a scarf-loving kick, I knit her up one of my original patterns from Knitpicks Chroma in "lollipop" and "Galapagos". Please note that the stripes are horizontal on one side of the scarf, and vertical on the other! The pattern is free and available HERE.



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THE EDGING FROM HELL IS DONE!!!

The shawl with the edging from Hell is finished! Here it is on the blocking board, which is exactly four feet on a side. I love the way it came out, but it seemed like that edging would never end!

If you are stupid enough to try this yourself, here is the chart I used (click to enlarge)

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