Hand-dyed and Handspun Capucine Hat FO

From dye pot to finished garment ... here's my handspun Capucine hat FO write-up.

I started off with 200g of undyed BFL fiber which I dyed with green(ish) & pink Kool-Aid. It looked so gorgeous straight out of the dye pot ...

When dry, the colours became much less vibrant, and I was worried that I might have felted the fiber slightly.

But after some pre-drafting, I began to spin it up (during the Tour de Fleece in July this year).

With the Capucine pattern in mind, I spun it in bulky/superbulky weight. As my first batch of handspun of the TdF it was a little uneven and over-spun in places, but I was still more than happy with the result.

Then, on my trip to Cornwall last week, I cast on during the four hour drive to the caravan park.

I do so love a bulky knit, as it seems to grow before your eyes.

I finished the main bulk of the hat quite early into the holiday, but forgot to pack my DPNs so had an agonising wait to finish it off.

A few days later, on the evening of returning home, I completed the last few decrease rows and closed the peak of the hat up, added braids, sewed the ends in and tried the hat on immediately.

I think you can see from the photo how pleased I am with the hat, which fits perfectly and is remarkably warm.

I just adore making the whole item from start to finish and can't quite explain how satisfying it is. It's just a wonderful feeling.

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Taking part in Sarah from Crafts from the Cwtch's SPINNING SHOW & TELL meme today. Please go along and take a look at her gorgeous blog.

My Hand-Dyed and Hand-Knit Great Divide Shawl FO

I took part in a fun KAL recently, and just have to share the results.

The pattern was the Great Divide Shawl by 'kisskisskiddo' on Ravelry, and I must say that it's my favourite shawl knit to date. It was fun, easy to memorize and quickly knit up with DK weight yarn.

Loving the creative freedom of dyeing my own yarn, I decided to take on a self-made challenge and dye with a specific project in mind for the first time.

As a relative dyeing noob, I'm still messing about with Kool Aid, but am constantly amazed by the richness and contrast of colours that can be achieved from what is essentially a powdered drink for children!

So, with my undyed 100% merino yarn, I set to work in the kitchen with the kettle dye method. I started with two contrasting colours, and here is what I came up with:

I called the one on the left 'Bluebell' as it features the beautiful range of purples, lilacs and blues found in the flowers of the same name. The one on the right is 'Earth Mother' as it reminds me of the earthy colours found so frequently on our planet; oranges, browns, rusts and greens.

I couldn't wait for this yarn to dry so I could cast on.

I just love the cast on for shawls, when the rows are short and you make fast progress.

With this pattern, I was excited to be able to use my contrasting colour very soon after starting the project. It is always a thrill to see how the colours you have chosen work together in the flesh, rather than in the imagination.

Being a sucker for texture as well as colour, I was in seventh heaven with this pattern ... as you can see, the stitches form a gorgeous repeating striping pattern with a great tactile design.

Being DK weight with a frequent set of increases, the main bulk of the shawl was knit up in no time, and I began to think on what I wanted to do about the bottom border. Initially, I was just going to knit the bottom edge with the remainder of the Bluebell coloured yarn, but as the shawl progressed, I started to visualise a third colour, so I set to work with the dye pots again.

I wanted a nice Spring-fresh green that would complement the other seasonal colours, and was really pleased with the results of my third skein of yarn.

Green is my favourite colour, and I usually like a slightly earthier shade, but I was really happy with the tonality I achieved in the bright limey-yellowy green pictured above, and it was exactly what I wanted to ofset the other bright colours featured in my shawl.

I am really happy with the three colours I chose, and even more so that I dyed them myself.

The finished shawl is my quintessential Spring and Summer Shawl for chilly British weather ... so bright and cheerful.

I am one very happy dyer / knitter indeed.

If you are on Instagram, please use hashtag #greatdividekal to see all the other wonderful knitters who took part in the KAL.

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Taking part in Tami's Amis and Other Creations FO Friday. Please go along and see all the other wonderful FOs :)

Making Self-Striping Yarn

I thought I'd share the fun and show you how I made some self-striping yarn recently.

For this project you will need some undyed yarn (any weight you like). I bought 100g of Zitron Trekking Undyed 4-ply Sock Yarn, which is 75% wool and 25% nylon ... perfect for socks as it has the nylon for extra strength and is machine washable at 40 degrees.

I put two kitchen chairs as far apart as I could, across the length of my kitchen and hallway. Any long length will work. You then proceed to wind your undyed skein around the backs of the chairs so creating a long loop of yarn.

Once all of the skein has been wrapped around the chair backs, you will need to secure it by tying as shown below in at least four places, spaced out evenly around the entire length of yarn. This is an important step as it will help to prevent your yarn from tangling up into a huge knot.

I use white acrylic yarn to tie off the sections so that I can clearly and easily see these ties after the dyeing process is finished. This is because acrylic yarn doesn't take the dye like natural wool yarn, and it will stay pale ... invaluable in preventing you accidently cutting the wrong threads later on!

Place your dry yarn in a luke-warm water bath for at least half an hour whilst you prepare your dyes ...

Take four or more empty and clean jam jars. Put 300ml of hot water in each and add one to two packets of Kool Aid dye to each. Choose a different colour for each of the jam jars.

Stand the jam jars in a large saucepan and carefully add enough water to the saucepan (in bain marie style) so that the water comes to about a third of the way up the jars.

As you can see in the photo below, I've used a range of different reds for my self-striping yarn.

So begin by turning the hob on underneath the saucepan, on a low to medium heat at first.

Then, after gently squeezing all of the excess water out of your yarn, you can start to add it to the jars. I added a length to the first of the jars until no more would fit, and then I began to fill the next jar with yarn and so on until all the yarn had been covered in dye.

To achieve this, I ended up needing four jars full ...

Where the yarn stretches between the jars, make sure you dunk the undyed yarn under the dye solutions to ensure that you don't leave gaps of white between the different containers.

I used my fingers for this and later realised that it would have been much better to wear some rubber gloves!

Monitor the heat setting on your hob so that you bring the water in the saucepan up to a fast simmer.

And as if by magic you will see the water in the jam jars turn clear (and sometimes a little milky).

Try not to prod and poke the yarn too much.

I left my yarn on the heat for between 20 mins to half an hour, double checked that all the dye had been taken up by the yarn and then turned the hob off.

The temptation here is to want to see it straight away, but the key is to leave it cool without touching it.

The rule is to leave natural wool until it's completely cool before rinsing, and superwash wool until the water is cool enough to touch.

Try to use water that is a similar temperature to the water you've just taken the yarn from to do your rinse, so that you don't shock the fibers and felt them. Add a little drop of detergent and let soak for a little while. Try not to agitate the yarn, but use a gentle action.

Squeeze (don't wring) the water away from the yarn. Roll it up in a dry towel, stand on it, using your body weight to press out any extra water.

Then hand your new yarn somewhere warm, but away from direct sunshine, to dry fully.

Once dry, you need to place your yarn back over the chair backs at as far away it takes to achieve taughtness in the yarn lengths. By eye, untwist the loop of yarn so that the strands are as parallel as you can get. Then carefully cut away the ties you made with acrylic yarn, which should still be a white colour and easy to see.

Then by hand, wind the yarn into a ball, untangling where necessary as you go.

Once you have a hand-wound ball, you can use a yarn winder to make a centre-pull ball, or a yarn swift (or niddy noddy) to make a skein.

And here's my finished self-striping yarn, re-skeined and pictured next to the inspiration for the colourway ...

I've called this my Ephipany yarn. It is named after the Epiphany Chapel in the Winchester Cathedral where this stained glass window is located. It was designed by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement in 1910 ... my favourite era in British art.

Dyeing to Have a Go!

I've been stalking various dyeing forums, YouTube and other websites for some time and have been gradually building up a theoretical knowledgebase. Procrastination is an issue of mine, but I recently decided to throw caution to the wind and get stuck in.

I was food shopping and in the baking isle when I spotted Dr. Oetker Gel Food Colourings in small tubes. The colours looked gorgeous so I just had to throw a few in the basket. At this point I was really in a state of pure experimentation (or madness) because not one of the websites I'd studied on this subject had ever shown results from using this brand, but I thought it would be fun to see what would happen.

I had some Citric Acid powder in my cupboards at home, left over from my last batch of Elderflower Cordial, and I found about 450-500g of cheap 56's English (which is a blend of white English sheep fleeces) fiber in my stash, so I had all I needed.

One cold and rainy Sunday I set my mind to giving kettle dyeing a go.

I got out my largest pan and ran some luke-warm water, to which I added citric acid, stirred to allow it to dissolve, and then I carefully placed about 150g of fiber in to soak for half and hour.

Then I switched the hob on to a moderate heat to warm the fiber up gently. When it was gently steaming without boiling, I began to add my colour.

I'd already prepared the colour by adding the contents of one tube of gel colouring to a jam jar filled with hot water. I had four in total ... green, blue, pink and purple.

With turkey baster in hand, I excitedly began to add the colour to the roving. Not really knowing the best way to proceed with this, I decided that I would do four equal sections of colour to try to prevent a muddy mess.

I used the tip of the baster to inject colour through the top layers of fiber to try to ensure an even distribution of dye, and then the waiting began.

Keeping an eye on the water temperature was not a chore at all. I just loved looking at the beautiful bright colours in the pan.

However, after about an hour on the hob (which was already longer than I had envisioned it taking), I was discouraged to see that the dye bath had not yet run clear. It appeared that it was the green dye that was at fault here, as the water had mostly run clear for all the other sections, but was a strong yellow colour around the green.

I quickly put word out to my dyeing friends on Instagram to see if anyone could tell me what I needed to do next.

One kind IG friend quickly responded saying that they add more fiber when this happens, in an attempt to soak up any excess dye. As I had plenty of fiber left, I thought it was worth a go. I took about 50g of fiber and added it to the dye bath, on top of the green section. I was delighted to see that it instantly turned a beautiful mellow yellow colour.

And within a short space of time, the dye bath was running much clearer.

Conscious that by this time the first lot of fiber had been in the pan for quite some time, and with a real concern that it might have felted, I moved it away from the hob to let it cool down.

An agonising wait ensued ... which was only allayed by the fact that it was lunch time for me and my toddler, which kept my mind off things for a while.

A short while after lunch the water was touch-comfortable and I simply couldn't wait any longer. In to the sink it went. The water coming away from the fiber was initially a very pale yellow. Here is a picture of the roving before rinsing.

The rinsing process proved to be disappointing. I watched with dismay as most of the pink and purple fell out of the fiber and went off down the plug hole.

I was delighted to see that the blue and green remained true. The green had also split to reveal shades of green, teal and yellow.

It took quite a few rinses before the water ran clear, and I was a little concerned to keep going for fear of the pinks and purples coming away completely, so with a gentle roll inside an old towel I took it to the clothes drier.

I was also really pleased with the 50g of fiber that I had used to pick up any excess dye, which was a beautiful blend of pale pastel shades.

Having been bitten by the bug in a BIG way, I looked at my left over undyed roving and citric acid and my mind wandered.

Yes I thought, I'm going back to the shops for more dye! Having fallen in love with the green dye I decided to use the remaining supplies I had left to do a plain green roving. With time against me, I decided to let the fiber soak whilst I went to the shops so I would be ready to get straight into dyeing upon my return.

This time I had about 250-300g of fiber which was a bit of a tight squeeze in the pan, but I wound it into a spiral and placed it into the citric acid water.

After a trip to the shops I had two tubes of the green dye in hand and was all set to go.

Again I was just in awe of the divine green colour of the fiber in the pan. A beautiful range of greens and yellows.

After about an hour on the hob, I decided that was enough time, even though there was still some excess yellow in the surrounding water.

After the cooling, to the sink it went and to my surprise this fiber had a completely different effect than the first lot. It was dyed dark teal/green in small sections with the rest of the roving being a yellowy-green colour. I certainly wasn't disappointed. I loved how something in the way I hadn't been so accurate with my fiber to water to citric acid ratio, and even my inexact timings had resulted in this unexpected colourway.

The following morning, the fiber was dry and I was so proud to be able to braid up my first ever hand-dyed rovings.

Unfortunately the first lot that I dyed was slightly felted, as I'd suspected. I think it had been on the hob a little too long, and I may have agitated it a little too much checking to see if the water had run clear. However, after some slightly challenging pre-drafting I checked that it was still useable, and created this mini yarn.

So all in all, not a bad first attempt. The main thing is that I thoroughly enjoyed myself and can hand on heart say that this is something I'll do again.

I really want to try all the methods to see which I prefer, so I'll probably use the microwave next time, and I may well try to dye ready made yarn, which I envision as being slightly less prone to felting. I also want to try Kool Aid dyeing as I'm looking forward to the range of beautiful bright colours, as well as filling the house with delicious fruit smells.

It really is exciting to try something new at the same time playing with one of my favourite things ... WOOL :)