Move Out Dye Job
I recently moved out of my apartment but had 2 weeks to spare before the lease was up, so while packing the last bits and bobs I decided why not one last dye job before I leave!
As the Stephanie Aurora Borealis experiment went so well I decided to go all in on the 2 ball 3 colors dye job practice that I have picked up and decided to dye 3 different color ways across 6 balls of thread, 2 balls each color way for 100 gm balls total, 50gm x2 balls each colorway.
A while back my sister asked me to make a nice purple and turquoise doily for a work colleague, I had some lovely success with fuchsia and aquamarine mixing for some really nice purple on this project, so I thought I would give it a go again.
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| Avgusta Pattern by Regina Gordeeva |
But half way through the dyeing process I realized I had divided the 100gm ball into 2 50gm balls just like the others, doh!, so I did a quick recalculation and decided to throw some turquoise in there for good measure and made it a 3 way color gradient, hope it turns out well.
I also seemed to have a bad case of the dumbs because I totally messed up my dye stock calculation lol! I blame it on the moving making me so tired haha.
Colors:
Here's where my sleep deprived brain played some tricks on me, as per my last experiment I went ahead and used the Dharma procion yield estimator calculator, and then halved the amount of dye powder recommended and intended to use that amount in 100ml water for each color total.
In the past I figured that using the full amount of dye powder recommended by the calculator should be cut in half due to the fact that the calculator is based on immersion or tub dyeing where the dye stock is added to a large amount of water.
Since I am effectively painting the dye onto the thread that dye stock strength may not be needed, so in an effort to use less dye powder I decided I would halve the amount of dye powder recommended by the calculator.
However I accidentally put in 200gms on the calculator and then halved that amount of dye powder which would have put me at full strength for the 100gms/ml dye stock mixing, but then I mixed it all up in 200 ml water, so somehow I actually ended up with the right DOS but had a lot of dye stock left over lol!
How my calculation should have looked;
Fuchsia = 100gms [that's 2*50gm balls] x 2.9% = 2.9gms/2 = 1.5gms in 100 ml water [that's 2*50ml for each ball dyed with fuchsia even though technically each 50gm ball would only be dyed half fuchsia, or 25gms/ml, I have been going in for the full 50gm/ml ball to cut down on white spots/striking]
How I actually did it - wrong-ish by the way lol;
Fuchsia = 200 gms [wrong! haha] x 2.9% = 5.8gms /2 = 2.5gms or 1/2 tsp in 200 ml water [wrong again! should have been 100ml]
So even though I managed to get the right dye powder amount I used the wrong amount of water, that ironically actually worked out with the right DOS because I doubled the water instead of using the right weight of powder and dividing it in half and mixing up only 100ml.
That's ok, as I decided to try my hand at tie dyeing a tapestry with some random white cotton fabric pulled from the bunch of junk I had to purge during the move.
Deep Yellow - Dharma #4 - OWG= 1.9%
2.5GMS [1/2TSP] in 200ml water
Fire Engine Red - Jacquard - OWG= 5.3% [used Dharma Fire Red for calculation]
5gms [1 tsp] in 200ml water
Fuchsia - Dharma #13 - OWG= 2.9%
2.5GMS [1/2TSP] in 200ml water
Aquamarine - Jacquard - OWG = 1.5% -I used Dharma Cayman Isle Green for the calculator since I think that's closer to Jacqaurds Aquamarine
1.5gms [1/4 tsp] in 200ml water
Turquoise - Jacquard - OWG 4.0%
2.5gms [1/2 tsp] in 200ml water
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| From Left, Fuchsia, Fire Engine Red, Deep Yellow and Aquamarine - Not picture Turquoise which was mixed last minute on dye day |
Method:
1. Standard pour on method
2. 100gms divided into 2 50gm balls *3, Fuchsia/Fire Engine Red, Fire Engine Red/Golden Yellow, Fire Engine Red/Golden Yellow, Golden Yellow/Aqua, Aqua/Turquoise, Turquoise/Fuchsia
3. Wrap is done loose, center of 1st color is wrapped very loose and then dipped in a bit of dye to saturate all the way to the center of the ball, then wrapped loose for halfish, 1st color poured on, wrap tight till 1st color only shows through as pale shade, wrap the rest of the ball loose and pour on 2nd color.
4. Put dyed balls in separate Ziploc bags to batch for 24hours
5. Un-wind balls onto a niddy noddy to make into a skein
6. Rinse out skeins, first cool rinse to get rid of soda ash, then 1-2 hot soaks in soapy water
7. Hang up to dry
8. Wind dried skeins into ball for the win!
Well let's see how they turned out in the wash:
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| Fuchsia/Fire Engine Red |
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| Fire Engine Red/Deep Yellow |
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| Fire Engine Red/Deep Yellow |
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| Deep Yellow/Aquamarine |
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| Aquamarine/Turquoise |
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| Turquoise/Fuchsia |
After drying:
The colors ended up coming out more muted than expected especially the fire engine red, but maybe that's the color its supposed to be or I maybe should have used Carmine Red, but it may also have come down to a variety of factors such as its getting colder, the Jacquard dyes are getting a bit old 1+year, and maybe the screw up with the DOS calculations lol!
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| Fire Engine Red/Fuchsia |
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| Fire Engine Red/Deep Yellow |
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| All together |
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| Aquamarine/Deep Yellow |
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| Deep Yellow/Fire Engine Red |
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| All wrapped up |
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| Fuchsia/Turquoise |
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| Turquoise/Aquamarine |
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| All wrapped up together |
The one odd thing happened on this skein of Fuchsia and turquoise, I don't know why but there was a lightening of the ends of the fuchsia, I figure that it must have been due to heat or lack there of.
I also noted some more white streaking than in the past, perhaps next time I will make my dye stock with urea to keep the thread wet during batching.
After winding:
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| Deep Yellow/Fire Engine Red/Fuchsia wound into a ball |
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| Fire Engine Red/Deep Yellow/Aquamarine wound into a ball |
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| Fuchsia/Turquoise/Aquamarine wound into a ball |
Overall I am pretty happy with these skeins, will have to see them worked up into a doily to see how happy I am with them in the end, overall they are pretty good, more muted than I would have like and more streaking than anticipated, but still good.
Normally, here is where I would feature the end product all worked up and on display, but since this is 3 balls of thread, so i don't expect to finish anytime soon, so I will go ahead and post the follow up pictures of finished projects in another post.
