Dyeing, not dying

As you probably saw, the new Knitty came out a few days ago. While there were a lot of gems in this season's issue (my Ravelry queue is growing!) I was immediately struck by the little sweater on the front cover, Shetland Shorty. Summer here is pretty miserable by my estimation, so I've been expanding my summer wardrobe to include lots and lots of dresses. Of course not all of them are really appropriate for all occasions, or sometimes I get chilly in the evening. I knew right away this was the perfect little sweater to go over a dress.

Of course, the last thing I need right now is to buy more yarn. But I do have a big bag of Knit Picks "Bare" or "Color Your Own" - whatever they're calling it now. And I didn't really want the white color, so it was time for a kitchen experiment.

I don't keep Kool-Aid around, but I did have a couple boxes of cheap or old tea. It was time to brew up a whole lot of it!

Tea packaging

It was kind of amusing, standing there and ripping apart all the little tea packages. I dumped in a whole box of Earl Grey as well as three or four big scoops of loose tea and set it to boil for a while. I was reading about tea dyeing online and some sources said to let it simmer overnight, but I'm impatient and that seemed like a waste of energy.

Tea brewing

After the house smelled pretty strongly of it, out came the tea bags...

Used tea

And in went the yarn to simmer for a while. In the meanwhile, I had dinner and did some other things around the house, and shut off the heat and went to bed.

Simmering yarn


The next morning, I had some nice brown yarn to rinse. It took four or five rinses to get the extra tea out.

Rinsing yarn

And then I hung it to dry over the sink and left it alone for the rest of the day.

Yarn drying

The finished project is a nice, even caramel tan color. I could have handled it being a little darker, but this is not bad and in my opinion a pretty successful dye job (seeing as I didn't know what shade it was going to be). Thankfully once the yarn was dry all the loose tea came out with a few shakes.

Tea Yarn

Now all I have to do is finish some other projects so I can start a new one! While summer here seems neverending and unbearable, I know in knitting time it will be over all too soon.

Comments

Sarah said…
I too love the Shetland Shorty! I bet your yarn has a pretty good scent to it - the other day I dyed my hair and I could have sworn there was some bergamot in there, since I smelled like Earl Grey the rest of the day.
1:18 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introducing Escargot

Image
Escargot It was June 2010 and Kel, Danielle, and I were flying down the highway coming back to Alexandria from TNNA (the yarn industry trade show) in Columbus, Ohio. Danielle may or may not have been pushing the speed limit just a smidgen, and Kel may or may not have been clinging to the Mini's door in abject terror. There was a lot of chatter and planning, interspersed with laughter and highway-induced exasperation. I was taking notes as we planned the next year in yarn for fibre space ... and I was doodling. One of the doodles turned into the Hatskarfenmitten . The other doodle became Escargot . But it took a while. Things changed and we moved to California, but I couldn't get the idea of a funky, asymmetrical, spiral-enhanced cloche out of my head. This summer, I bumped into Amy Singer, the editor of Knitty , at a couple of yarn festivals, and told her I had a really cool hat idea. She said, "send it in." Pretending we are waiting for the train. With r...
Read more

"Knitting is a stupid hobby"

"Knitting is a stupid hobby." Those few words, spoken by the other member of my household, nearly drove me to inarticulate rage last night. We had sat down to dinner - enchiladas, if you want to know - and I was in the midst of talking about the new 25th Anniversary Vogue Knitting magazine. I had wanted to share it, show how it was put together, and figured we could have a laugh at the preponderance of advertising and bizarre design that filled its pages. Alas, this was not to be so. Not only was I interrupted with a complete non sequitur on his part, showing me a different magazine from another genre (hello, can you sit down and listen for a minute? you're not the only one here with interests or opinions), but the reaction I got was totally unexpected. I was shaking my head at the latest Maie Landra-Koigu design (a suit set with short tuxedo pants, modular construction to the tune of 55 skeins of KPPPM and sequins, sequins for crying out loud), hoping to get some a...
Read more

Unraveling

Tonight, I sat down to knit on a sock - it doesn't matter which one - only to discover that several inches back, I'd made a mistake serious enough to warrant ripping it out. I like my pairs of socks to match one another as precisely as possible, so out it went. Two steps forward, one step back, and suddenly I'm in a place where I can start moving forward again, more perfectly. That is kind of how life is these days, both with knitting and, well, life. I think I've gotten myself somewhere only to stop, take a step back, and start again. Things aren't working out and I'm moving. In two weeks I'll be in another city, with other people. Closer to my family, closer to old friends for the holidays - but back to bad weather and, inevitably, unemployment. It's a gamble, but how can I not make the choice for happiness? For [astronomically] lower rent? For getting to see my parents and everyone else at Christmas? So I'm packing. Chicago or bust!
Read more