Random Acts of Handpainting

Heaven bless my ever-patient boss. I normally work Tuesdays, but today was the only day this week with a halfway decent weather forecast, and I'm not allowed to dye in the house. Grant's mother dyed wool for hooked rugs when he was a kid, and although the rugs are stunning, his olfactory nerves are scarred for life. So I bought a hot plate, arranged to work tomorrow instead of today, and set up on the back deck.


Here we have my lab-oooo-ratory. (I bought the ugliest vinyl tablecloth I could find to use as my dye drop cloth, on the theory that I'd be happy when it got covered with polychrome splotches.) I decided to handpaint with a narrow range of colors. Using One Shot dye from Pro Chemical, I mixed roughly even amounts of blue and red to get a deep purple, then blue with less red to get more of a midnight blue. I mixed blue with just a smidge of yellow, hoping for turquoise, but got more of a dark teal. First lesson learned: a little yellow goes a long, long way.


Here's the dyed yarn ready to get rolled into its plastic-wrap sausage and steamed in the pot. This was almost exactly what I had in mind, not at all bad for a first try. I ran a little short of dye at the end, but managed to make it all come out even. Second lesson learned: mix up a little more dye than I think I'll need.

A few minutes ago I unwrapped the yarn, rinsed it out and hung it to dry. It's looking good! More pictures will be forthcoming.

Next time I want to try a few more colors, and maybe try using a warping board. First I'll see how the random method looks when it's all dry and skeined up pretty, though. This was fun! Anyone want to have a dyeing party?