Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

Archive for the ‘Fabric and Fiber arts’ Category

I liked my little blue purse so well that I thought I’d do another one.

This time changing up the pattern a bit, make the purse a bit larger and different colors.

I decided on pink and black. Had to mail order the fun fur, as no one carries it locally. Managed to find wool in the right colors at Hancock Fabrics… the only local store with a good selection of wool!

This is going to be my last knitting/felting project for a while. I need to do some stamping as I’m way behind on rak backs.

Anyhow, before and after photos…

Before felting… and then the bottom before felting, so you can see that this one is rectangular rather than square.

Just out of the washer!

And finally… with the little blue purse. Quite a size difference!

I guess I’m going to have to take it to work with me Monday, to show it off… then call Candice to come get her new purse. :)

Hugs,
Vyx

I dyed more yarn yesterday and today. I mentioned that this time I was going to be using acid dye, rather than mx dye. I love how it works… the yarn just sucks all the dye out of the water!

With mx dyes there is always a lot of wash out. Excess dye that didn’t bind to the fabric and has to be rinsed out. Not so with acid dyes!

So I took some photos. This first one is of the yarn going into the murky dye pot. I left a bit sticking out so you could see the color it was. (pale lime green, almost yellow, yuck!)

When the water gets to a certain temperature, the dye magically disappears into the yarn. (the magic temp was 150 F for me) The water was still faintly blue, but you can see all the way to the bottom! Couldn’t do that before!

That was so cool… I mean, I was expecting it to happen, did quite a bit of reading online before attempting to dye wool… but still, nothing like seeing it in real life!

The almost dried yarn looks like this next photo, a very blue green. It’s also quite tangled, I didn’t tie off the yarn more like I’d done with longer skeins in the coral to red/brown batch. I tied off the second batch of this with some cotton yarn before putting it into the dye pot, though. Can’t be having a bunch of tangled yarn! (sorry about that, Jan, it’s gonna be a chore winding this)

Second batch is cooling in the dye bath and will get rinsed/washed as soon as I can put my hand into the water and have it not feel too warm. Sometime before bedtime, I hope, so that it can dry overnight and get mailed early this week. Er, of course Jan may not approve of this color… so I may be doing over and changing it somewhat. Hey, but at least it’s not pale yucky lime any more!

Lastly for tonight… while I was waiting on dye bath to cool down yesterday I finished knitting my hat. Now, previously I’ve only knitted 2 fun fur scarves and a purse that got felted. Just basic garter stitch, aside from a few rows of purling on the purse. I was sort of experimenting on this hat I made with cheap acrylic yarn… to see if I might like knitting anything fancier than just plain old knitting every row. I do love knitting in the round… if I had to do stockinette stitch by switching between purling and knitting it would NEVER come out as even as it does with circular needles. I knit very tightly, and I purl very loosely. Switching between those, like for the ribbing… Big Holes. But as you can see, I managed to do some more garter stitch that came out pretty good.

The bottom of the hat was done back and forth until I wanted to switch to stockinette, then I went to knitting in the round. I think it came out pretty good, considering I was knitting without a pattern. It’s not as long as it should be, I underestimated how far it would go when I got to decreasing at the top. The decreasing bit was fun… I realized about the 3rd round that it was NEVER going to work continuing on the circular needle. Switched over to DPN’s and went a little smaller because my bamboo DPN’s are in metric and the corresponding American size was actually a bit larger. It’s easier to switch to smaller needles than to larger needles when you knit as tightly as I do.

While knitting the hat I also tried to train myself to knit in the continental style, with the yarn held in the left hand. I got good at it… but my rows got tighter and tighter and I had to switch back to right hand yarn after the 3rd round or so. Could BARELY get the needle in at that point. It’s probably just a matter of practice… I’ve also taught myself a bad habit knitting the hat. Using my fingertips to poke at the tips of the needles while working stitches. I’ve got a fairly well bruised right index finger, so with my next project (already started) I’m trying to untrain myself at that. Hey, I’ve got so I can sort of watch tv while knitting… long as I remember to look over the reading glasses when I look at the tv, lol!

Expecting Ron’s daughter Candice to come over in a little while… she needs to use the computer… plus I want to talk to her. My new project is something I think she’ll like… but it may have to be the next project after this one. We’ll see.

Hugs,
Vyx

So, two weekends ago I dyed some wool yarn for my friend Jan. I used procion mx dye, which is mainly for cotton and other fibers of that sort but will work on protein fibers if done in the right way. (using acid to fix the dye, rather than soda ash like on cotton… you can’t use soda ash on wool, but you can on silk)

Before I dyed all the yarn I did a couple of test runs on short bits of yarn. The color came out beautiful.

Not so when it came down to the actual yarn. I got a big shock… the yarn came out MUCH darker than I expected and while the color was pretty much the same color… there were also whole sections of the skeins that came out even darker… totally a different color than I was going for.

It looks horrible in this photo… the actual yarn is much better. My camera skills are not that great, and I was shooting with no natural light. But still, you can see what the sample looked like on top there. And how the actual yarn is quite a bit darker.

I was all AUGH AUGH! However, my experience in dyeing stuff allowed me to dye all that wool in TWO batches and have it come out pretty much exactly the same. Even down to dark spots. That was part luck, part skill and frankly pretty amazing. I =do= have skills! Hand dyeing any sort of fiber can be a gamble to get the same color on repeat, but I was very careful measuring everything out… and even the boiling of the yarn.

The first batch took over 6 hours to get up to a simmer. My instructions said to heat slowly, so slowly is what I did… VERY slowly. That’s probably why the yarn got so much darker than I expected. I was worried about felting the yarn in the dye pot, so extra careful.

The next day I did the second batch. I didn’t use the simmer burner for that batch, but I still took it very slow… even after re-reading my instructions. The instructions say bring from room tempurature up to a simmer over a 45 minute period. Somehow I missed that snippet the first dye batch! But I’m trying to exactly duplicate the first dye batch… so very, very slow again. Probably only 4 hours to simmer though, not 6 or more, hah!

One of the reasons I did the yarn in two batches is that a POUND of wool is actually quite a bit of yarn. It would all fit into my 4 gallon stainless pot, but not swish around very easily. You can’t stir it too much or risk felting… but to not stir could mean the yarn at the bottom getting too hot from the burner. So, having it move around more freely is a good thing.

Up this weekend… the lime green yarn gets a transformation. Another horrid photo… and the test is way too dark so I’m going to use a lot less dye to start out.

This, however, is an acid dye. That means it’s MADE to dye wool, unlike my procion mx dye. From what I’ve been reading, when I hit that sweet spot in tempurature…. the dye will all disappear from the dye bath and go right into the yarn. In other words…. instead of a murky dye bath the water will turn =clear=!

How cool is that? I can’t wait to see it happen! I’m going to start with 1/8th of a cup of (mixed up) dye for 1/2 pound of wool. It’s a beautiful spruce… blue green. At a lower strength than full strength dye like the sample it should come out amazing. Of course any other color than that pale lime will be great, lol!

Back to the mx dye on wool… I used Dharma Trading Company’s “Chocolate Brown”. I’ve used this on silk with vinegar, and it comes out a really nice maroon… pretty much like the test bits on the wool did. It’s a mixture, tho, not a true color. But still, I expected it would work nicely on the wool, and it did on the tests. Lots darker on the wool and actually made brown in bits. Very red brown, but still. The odd thing, in my opinion, was when the dye bath had cooled and I got to rinse out…. the water left in the dye bath was cobalt blue. I’m thinking that must be a component of the mixture… and it doesn’t take on wool (or silk) when used with acid. Cobalt Blue mx is one of my favorite dye colors… not as useful for mixing as Turquoise is, but splendid by itself. Works great on silk when used with soda ash instead of vinegar. Just a brilliant dark, and slightly green, blue. It is one of the better mx dyes, and not a mixture.

So, that’s my little story of dyeing wool yarn. Did I tell ya I was saying AUGH AUGH AUGH when I was rinsing the yarn? Seriously freaking out. Then I got to mail it to my friend and cower while waiting her email when she opened the box. Jan loves it, and I get to try again with pale lime yarn. That’s my plan for this weekend, when it’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow.

Hugs,
Vyx

I felted my new purse this afternoon. It’s laying on the dryer air drying now.

(glasses in photo for scale this time, lol!)

It’s QUITE sturdy, I’m sure knitting with 2 strands of wool and only adding the others helped that a lot.

My handle is quite lumpy… should have expected that, as the fancy yarn I got is quite varied in size. Oh, and just in case anyone is wondering: Nashua Handknits “Sitar” is the fancy yarn, in Deep Blue Seas color. It’s only 50% wool, but felted up quite nicely along with the regular wool.

Here is a shot of the top with a piece of unfelted i-cord using the same yarns.

And finally, a photo of the bottom so you can see how the knitting disappeared. It’s amazing! I’ve never felted anything before… and knowing how it’s supposed to work is a lot different than actually doing it and seeing for yourself.

Now I’m off on a hunt for a small coin purse to knit and felt… to use up the last of the yarns, of course. And then I think I’ll knit a hat. A hat should be almost as easy as this purse was, right? :)

hugs,
Vyx

(next up, learn continental knitting…it just looks so much easier)

P.S. All photos enlarge when you click on them… I forget to remind people about that.

Shoot, where do I even categorize this? Fabric arts? I guess so. Might need another category… hmm.

I’ve only ever knitted scarves before. And not many, not many at all. Two, to be exact. Both done with Fun Fur and about 5 years in between! Simple garter stitch, easy as pie. Boring, too… but EASY is about my knitting skill level, lol!

As an aside… I used to crochet quite a bit and even made a car seat cover for my oldest niece when she was born… without a pattern. But I did most of my crocheting back when I still actually talked on the phone. My niece turned 21 just a few months ago… and I don’t talk on the phone anymore if I can get someone else to do it for me.

Anyhow. My friend Jan has the cutest purse I’ve ever seen. I really adored it first time I saw it. Just so darling! And back when I was giving all my fun yarns away I kept one… Sapphire blue fun fur, because the adorable purse is done with a furry yarn.

So I begged Jan to tell me the secret of her purse. And she did! And so then I went on a hunt for wool that would go with my fun fur… and also managed to find another yarn for the handles. Expensive yarn, lol! Oh, and of course I had to invest in some knitting needles. Not realizing that most of my knitting would be HUGE I got a set of 7 inch DPNs. I actually started the purse on the DPNs, but had to pull it all out after trying to make my own version of a circular needle. (tubing that the yarn would NOT slide on, ugh)

Jan came to my rescue again, trading me for a set of circulars that she doesn’t use any more. I started over. And so, I’ve knitted my purse. Tonight was the final rows and binding off. Weaving ends in. And emailing my questions about finishing.

I have a lot of questions, of course… this purse gets felted. I do know some things, but not like… where do I weave the handle in? And is one enough? I think I want two.

So I may not felt this tonight, I think I need another i-cord handle. I THINK I have enough wool left, and I know I have enough of the other fancy yarn left for another handle. I’ll probably go start it when I finish typing this…. just in case I need it.

Will post photos (of course) as soon as the purse is finished and felted…

This is gonna be sooooo cute! And so cool, too, that I could knit something like this all by myself!

hugs,
Vyx