Dyed silk hankies

I finally decided to dye my silk hankies prior to spinning. Unfortunately I forgot that silk could be dyed with food colouring. Well well, so I bought some silk dye from Panduro.  The batteries were completely drained in my camera so there are only after pictures available.

I soaked about 50 g of the hankies in water with some citric acid in a big glass jar for maybe 1 hour. After draining the water I simply sprinkled the dye over the hankies. However, the dye did not dilute in the fibres so I poured on some water. I used mainly a turquoise dye with some sprinkles of navy blue.  When I felt satisfied with the dyeing I put the jar with the hankies in the microwave oven. The description was for 3-4 minutes at 350 W. Which I more than doubled with rest in between. The water was still not clear…Hopefully the dye was set properly. I separated the hankies into smaller piles and hung them up to dry.

From Spinning

Every time I passed  them hanging there I felt happy. Hopefully I will like the yarn as much. I  intentionally left some parts white and some are  darker blue so the yarn will have some nice nuances.

From Spinning

Self-striping bonbon yarn

The yarn had already dried. I wound it up into a smaller skein and it looks quite nice. Perhaps not the best colour combo but the colours are solid not at all variegated.

Of course I want to see how it look so I’ve started knitting some Jaywalkers by Grumperina. This is what I’ve got so far. Only the ribbing but it’s definitely self-striping. Yeah!

I went for a walk in my living room

Only 600 meters or so but still a walk. Back and forth, back and forth. Between two chairs set up in opposite ends of the room. I needed a skein of about 9 meters in circumference to make self striping yarn out of the yarn I bought yesterday afternoon. The yarn was bought purely for this purpose. Dyeing that is. Never thought I’d be dyeing, but here I am.

The yarn is Järbo Gästrike 2 plied, bought at my closest LYS. I bought two 100 grams skeins of about 300 meters each. I made both of them into long skeins and tied them at three meter intervals. Only one of them got dyed today. I wanted to see how it turned out first.

The yarn was soaked in water for about 15-20 minutes. In the meantime I prepared the first colour – red or pink rather pink. Citric acid and water with about 10 drops of food dye (Ekströms karamellfärg). I went for the zapping technique I’ve read about on many blogs using 3 times 2 minutes on high with about 2 minutes rest in between.

Rinse and repeat! Next came blue/turquoise (from Panduro hobby) and last but not least a mix of green and yellow dyes to get a lighter green.

After two zaps in the microwave for the green I left it standing for about an hour because dinner was ready (Thank you sweetheart!). But this last technique seemed to be the best one. The water was completely clear.

After rinsing the skein was hung up to dry! And I can’t wait to knit with it to see how it turned out.