Wow my Dharma order sure came in fast, I put in the order on a Monday and it got to me by that Friday! Note ordered from Western Canada, so that's pretty good shipping time, it came by UPS which was the lowest price shipping option and that seemed to work out great.
This was my birthday present to myself, or rather my second lol! I also ordered a couple of spindles, some cotton and merino roving to try my hand at spinning my own thread/yarn, that will be another post though, spoiler alert it is hard! lol! Just like everything it takes time, its been almost 6 years so I guess I have forgotten how frustrating crochet was when I started, and these recent not so good results with my dye projects in the summer have humbled me on my dyeing skills lately, so back to practice, practice, practice!
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| First attempts on the drop spindle |
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| Some to die for roving that I'm too scared to spin lol |
But that's also the reason I took the jump and ordered a set of dyes from Dharma, until then I had been using the small 2/3 oz Jacquard dyes from my local art supply store [note for those looking to get started see my first posts on dye supplies] Jacquard is good solid procion mx fiber reactive dye, it doesn't have as large a range of colors as Dharma, but mainly the small amounts leave me wary to practice more as each jar comes to about $7.00 CDN each, with about 2x as much dye and roughly half the price for most colors Dharma is just the step up I need to keep practicing.
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| 8 jars of 2oz of procion dye! |
My Dharma order included the following colors - Nebula Navy [a green looking kind of Navy], Deep Yellow [which I hope will adequately replace my golden yellow], Hot Hibiscus [for a nice hot pink], Fuchsia Red [classic primary] Cobalt Blue [for some interesting mixing options] Coral Pink [a hard color to make for me] Terracotta [same as with coral, tough color to make] and Celadon! I actually waited until Celadon came back into stock to make my order as I really, really, reaaallllyy wanted it for a color palette that I had hoped to make back in the spring but just couldn't mix on my own with Jaquard colors.
I also threw in an N95 dust mask to go legit from my covid cloth masks, a printed color catalogue, a pair of Dharma's new cotton spandex bike shorts, I love wearing these in the summer under dresses and jumpsuits as it cuts down on chafing. I did some quick tie dye on them just to get it finished before I have to pack up and move.
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| Lol, I had just soaked these in soda ash and took them out for pictures on the same surface that I had the Closed! jars on see next pic for results |
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| I guess there was some residual dye dust molecules on the jars cause this little guy soaked them all up lol! |
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| Tie dye done in Celadon and Coral with some accidental splotches of Nebula Navy dye particles |
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| Spiral done in Nebula Navy and Hot Hibiscus |
In all but 1 of the colors I went ahead with the Dharma dye yield estimator and put all the dye recommended in 50 ml of water for each color.
Hot Hibiscus, 1gm in 50ml
Coral Pink, 1.5gm in 50ml
Nebula Navy, 3gm in 50ml
Celadon, 1gm in 100ml
On my first try with Dharma dyes I used the estimator for the Celadon color, see my Murky March Sunrise Elune post, and found that I had to dilute the dye stock quite a bit. So I figured that because I am effectively painting the color on thread and here on fabric, that the amount of water should be doubled but the amount of dye as per Dharma should stay the same in order to get the desired color to match their color chips. Hence why I used 100ml in the Celadon color, just to test if I was right, and I think that I was. The Coral is a bit too orange and could do with diluting, and both the navy and the hot hibiscus as well.
Still they are pretty and I will enjoy wearing them under dresses. Have to say though, when dyeing what is essentially underwear I felt a little limited on the colors, can't use yellow or brown lol!
I also ordered their sample card that had all the cotton yarn/thread samples they carry, mostly I did so to compare the difference between weaving cotton and crochet cotton. I'm always on the look out for a good economical way to get large amounts of white cotton thread for dyeing my projects and wondered weather or not weaving cotton would be a good substitute for crochet thread.
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| All 15 types of cotton yarn samples |
Spoiler alert, I'm gonna stick with buying the Jumbo Ball of Aunt Lydia's size 10 crochet thread at Walmart, its the best price for the most amount and for the right type of thread. The right type of thread for me is 100% cotton mercerized thread with a bit of bounce to it.
I know a lot of people knock Aunt Lydia for it's quality but honestly I don't see it, I've never used the DMC pearl cotton or it Ceblia thread which people rave about because it comes in such tiny quantities for such a high price more often than not its coming in at 50gms/300yds for 2x the price of Aunt Lydias! Ouch, that's just not going to work for me when I work on projects with yardage that is at least 500yds. To each their own though :)
But weaving thread or weaving yarn enticed me because I figured that weaving would take up so much more yardage that they were bound to sell it in larger quantities, for a good prices and they are sold on cones which would make winding them into skeins before dyeing a little easier.
Well, from the comparison picture below you can see the difference in size between the standard 3 weaving cotton sizes, 5/2, 8/2 and 10/2 thread vs my Aunt Lydia thread Size 10. The 5/2 is about the closest match in terms of size and diameter, so there, I hope that helps everyone like me who was looking for the comparison without having to go out and buy a cone of each size to compare.
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| 3 sizes cotton warp twist, left to right 10/2, aunt lydias in orange, 8/2, 5/2 |
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| Aunt Lydia's size 10 vs 10/2 cotton warp twist |
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| Aunt Lydia's size 10 vs 8/2 cotton warp twist |
I'd say in terms of size its a toss up between 10/2 and 8/2 vs Aunt Lydia's size 10 cotton crochet thread.
Still I'll be sticking with Aunt Lydia, as has been noted before by others who have been asked the question about the difference between crochet thread and weaving cotton, the ply/twist direction on crochet thread is different from that of most yarn and weaving cotton, crochet cotton thread has a Z twist while weaving cotton and most other yarns have a S twist. The Z twist makes for a really strong thread for crochet thread which is often twisted and turned in many directions to make decorative stitches, that properly hold their shape and ply.
Whats more the weaving cotton also seems to have a rather loose twist and is not as stiff as I would expect for a mercerized cotton, not as much sheen, I'm sure I could go for higher quality to get that though.
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| fairly loose twits, even the thread itself was not twisted tightly together |
In any case it comes down to price in the end, I guess crochet actually does eat up yarn and thread more than any other are because for the same amount of weaving cotton thread vs Aunt Lydias size 10 thread the price is also about double. So maybe weaving doesn't use nearly as much thread as I though despite all that yarn being sold by the cone.
Ah well, now I know, and now you know too. If I ever find a cheaper source for crochet cotton thread I'll be sure to post it here for all you other would be indie thread dyers! Oh Spoiler agian on my spinning post, any illusions I had about being able to spin my own cotton thread, well hahaha, spinners are not lying about how hard a fiber it is to spin.
