I got all the skeins dressed up in their pretty little labels, so I thought I'd post a few more images. As always, they're behind a cut to keep it a surprise for those who don't want to know ahead of time!

Pictures of all the things!

Now that the last ball of KdR is safely in the hands of its new owner (be sure to feed and water it regularly and take it for nice long walks!), I've updated the official gallery post.  I'll be putting KdR as well as the other colorways from Round 1 up for sale in a shop early next month.

I've also spent the last few days dividing and skeining Blue. I'm about halfway through the second kilo now, and haven't made the labels yet, but this colorway is just too pretty not to share.

Although the cocktail for this month is called "Blue," the actual finished color of the drink is mostly a strawberry pink, a result of the pale blue of the blueberry liqueur mixing with the natural orange of the OJ.  Since strawberry is also a dominant flavor in the cocktail, I made a soft pink a dominant color in this yarn.  I also spent a long time experimenting with this one, trying to mix just the right shade of blue to represent the blueberry element of the cocktail, and I think I finally got it.  It's a navy blue with faint purple undertones, almost the exact same shade as a ripe blueberry. The transitions between the navy blue and pink fade to this really lovely lavender color that reminds me of summer sunsets - very fitting, considering that this cocktail basically tastes like summer in a glass.  I kept the orange and lemon yellow elements rather small, with a smooth gradient between them, further reinforcing that sunset feel.


Without further adieu, here are some pics of the yarn!

Notes on Dyeing, Part 5

The second kilo of Blue is steaming away happily on my stove, and the first is nearly completely dry and should be all skeined up by Tuesday.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: each time I dye yarn, I get a little bit better at it. Here are the things I've learned this time:

1. When I'm all alone in my garage, my furnace is the scariest thing ever.  Remember in Home Alone, where little Kevin is terrified of going into the basement because of the monstrously terrifying furnace down there? I sympathize. Mine is a much more modern furnace, but it still roars like the bejeezus when it comes on, and therefor scared the crap out of me about 4 times.

2. Cough medicine + empty stomach + long hours of dyeing = no fun at all. I mentioned before that I'm getting over a cold, and was still all hopped up on Dayquil while dyeing the first kilo.  I don't really feel hungry when I'm sick, so I guess I hadn't eaten enough that day because I started to get super dizzy and nauseous.  Miraculously I managed not to cough, sneeze, or vomit on any of the yarn. You're welcome.

3. There is a new love in my life, and his name is navy blue.  I am totally in love with the dark blue used in this month's colorway.  Some blues get so dark you can't tell what they are, but this maintained its blueness very well even in the darkest areas.  It also fades beautifully into this lovely twilight lavender color, which made for some really cool transitions into the strawberry pink.  I'm considering dyeing a few balls of worsted yarn with this dye and making a blanket or something.

4. Some of these colors change dramatically when they hit the yarn.  That same blue above looks positively purple when it first touches the yarn; similarly, the berry pink starts off with a strong orange undertone.  But both of these colors change significantly after a few moments. I don't know if it's a reaction with the protein fibers, or maybe with the acid agent, but it's really cool to watch.  It's also why you ALWAYS DO SWATCHES. Because the color of the powder doesn't equal the color of the dye, which doesn't equal the color on the yarn, which doesn't always equal the FINISHED color on the yarn.

5. The more I like a color, the more of it winds up all over me.  My nails have navy blue dye under them, my forearms are stained blue, and there's even some in my hair. I have no idea how any of this happened, but I'm okay with it.

I'll be updating the gallery post on Monday with pictures of Kir de Reddit (which all US customers have received by now), and then stay tuned for preview pics of Blue!

Kir de Reddit Dyeing Complete!

I was waaaaaay ahead of the curve this month and actually had both kilos of KdR all dyed super early.  Hopefully this whole "getting things done ahead of time" thing will be a new trend for me. Makes things so much less stressful.  With four whole kilos of yarn due to arrive by Friday (for the upcoming Blue and Alaskan Ice Tea colorways), I'm thinking I might actually be able to have the next four month run completed by December so I can begin working on other projects.

As seems to be the way of things, each subsequent dye gets a little bit easier as I work towards perfecting my methods.  Successes and failures this month:

1. More intense colors tend to wick beautifully. Both the dark purple and the raspberry dyes used in this month's colorway require heavier concentrations of dye to get just the right color - roughly 3 times as much dye per kilo as for the softer colors.  Because of this, it seems like the dye gets sucked up by the yarn much more readily, so that it wicks (spreads through the fiber) very easily.  This created some really beautiful and subtle transitions between the colors.

2. Fiber content matters way more than you think for some colors. The dyes I use are good for all animal fibers - wool, silk, nylon, angora, alpaca, etc.  Up until now, I've been doing samples on 100% wool even though the yarn for Socktails is 75/25 SW wool/nylon, and there hasn't been any difference in the colors on the sample versus the finished product. Until now. I did a couple samples on the wool which were nice, but ran out before getting it just right... so I switched to a 75/25 blend just like the sock yarn. Wow, so different!  I'm so glad I ran more samples using this new yarn because otherwise you would all be getting some really weird looking skeins later.

3. Nitrile gloves are the way to go. I've been trying to salvage my nails, which got all messed up during the move up here, and a big part of that is keeping them dry and away from weird chemicals.  Especially my right index finger, which was severed (and reattached, thankfully) straight across the nail bed when I was a kid, resulting in a "trauma nail" that has a lot of problems.  I've been wearing regular kitchen gloves while dyeing but find that they (1) leave my hands smelling funny and (2) make it hard to feel the yarn and know what I'm doing.  This month I switched to blue nitrile gloves - the kind your doctor probably uses - and they felt way more natural and comfortable.  I still can't find any small enough to fit my apparently freakishly tiny woman hands, but the nitrile fits better than the rubber gloves and that's a start.

4. Raspberry colored dye is just as messy and unpredictable as actual raspberries.  You know how, when you eat fresh berries, you tend to find stains and splotches even in places you SWEAR were nowhere near the berries in question?  Raspberry-colored dye is the same way.  How did it get on the bottom of my socks? I wasn't even wearing socks while I was dyeing!  Sigh.

Anyway. Those were this month's grand revelations.  Stay tuned later this week for preview pics of Kir de Reddit!

Dyeing Round 3 is complete!

I dyed the White Russian yarns on Tuesday and Wednesday and spent most of yesterday winding the first kilo (which dried super fast, yay!) into 100 gram skeins. It looks AWESOME. And I kind of want to eat it. It makes me think of vanilla-chocolate-swirl ice cream, which is kind of what a White Russian tastes like to me anyway, so I guess that's a success. How'd it go? Well...

1. The Dexter Kill Table method is holding strong. Excessive use of plastic wrap is definitely making the whole steam bath process easier. I think I may have to cover more of the garage in plastic sheeting, though, since I'm starting to get very faint stains on the floor. They'll probably wash out with bleach (like the ones in the kitchen did...) but I don't want to risk permanent staining.

2. I have to accept that I will always hate the big skein. I love the samples, I love the little 100g skeins, but for some reason, when I finish dyeing the big kilo skein, I just hate it. Maybe it's because at that point I've been staring at it for several hours and fighting it to get the dye to penetrate through.  Maybe my brain just can't wrap itself around that much yarn. By the time I pull it out of the steam bath, rinse it, and hang it to dry, I'm convinced that it's the most hideous thing ever and my subscribers are going to hate it, and all I can see is the flaws. Then I divide it into smaller skeins, and suddenly it's beautiful and all I want to do is hug it. I have to learn to trust my samples, which I keep making until they're perfect, and just keep reminding myself that the final product will look better than the intermediate stage.

4. Dyeing earlier in the day is the way to go. My garage starts to get super hot at like 2 or 3 in the afternoon, so I planned my dye sessions this time so that I'd be done around then. It's a lot less exhausting without heat and dehydration sapping all my will.

3. Dubstep is surprisingly good music to dye to.  I'd barely heard of dubstep until a classmate of mine at SFSU shoved his headphones over my ears and made me listen to it. Not bad. I recently got the whole Skrillex  discography from iTunes and decided on a whim to put it on while dyeing this time. It was actually a really good soundtrack. Upbeat enough to help me forget how tired I get while dyeing, but not so melodic as to make me zen out to much.  When I paint, I like to go into that quiet, still place where the act itself becomes a meditation (which is why I listen to the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack while I paint), but I feel like dyeing requires a different mindset. The only dubstep I have is Skrillex, so if you'd like to recommend others, please do so in the comments.

Yeeeeeeep, that's about it. Great life lessons from dyeing. I'll post preview pics of White Russian on Monday (behind a jump, as usual, so those of you who wish to can keep it a surprise) and maybe some other stuff too. Yay stuff!

A few things I've learned from my first HUGE dye run.

As of yesterday afternoon, all of my dye supplies had finally arrived - the last thing I needed was a large folding plastic table to be my work station, and as soon as it got to my door, I was a-dyeing.  Most of my dyeing in the past has been smaller scale runs, a few hundred grams at a time.  Never had I attempted to dye 2 whole kilos of yarn at once.  It was quite an experience, and took me about 3 hours to apply all the dye. Here are the notes I made to myself for next time:

1. Make at least 3 times as much dye as you think you'll need.

I had to stop and mix more dye 3 times yesterday, and wound up using nearly a quart of each color.  I definitely need to mix a few quarts at a time rather than a pint.

2. Use at least 3 times as much plastic wrap as you think you'll need.

I thought I'd laid down plenty, but when I rolled the dyed yarn up to let it set for a few minutes, suddenly there was an enormous, vaguely pink puddle on my garage floor. Whoops.  (It got all over my shoes, too, but those are my painting shoes anyway, so no big deal.) My new mantra is, "I will not be stingy with the glad wrap. I will not be stingy with the glad wrap."

3. Dye one kilo at a time, for the sake of your own sanity.

Here's something you may not know - a kilogram of yarn is a FUCKTON OF YARN.  Each kilo formed a skein that was about 4 feet long, a foot wide, and about 3 inches thick. It is super hard to get even dye penetration through that much yarn.  Because I was doing two kilos at once yesterday, I didn't have as much room as usual to sort of spread out the skein, exposing more layers to get more controlled dye application, so it took forever to get it through the whole dense mass.  Doing one kilo at a time will mean more dyelots, but I think it will be better for my perfectionist brain, and who (besides crazy dyers like myself) buys more than a kilogram of yarn anyway?  What the hell do you need 4600+ yards of sock yarn for!?

4. This stuff is freaking heavy. Dye on weekends when hubby is home.

Two kilos of yarn holds a lot of water/dye.  Those things must have doubled or tripled in weight by the time I was done.  I almost couldn't lift the rolled fibers into the steam pot.  And speaking of the steam pot...

5. This stuff is freaking huge. Use the biggest pot you can find.

After I had wrestled the dyed fiber into a rolled bundle, I realized there was no chance that it was going to fit in the steamer pot I had purchased, even though said steamer pot was an enormous 3 gallon pot.  The rolled bundle was at least a foot across, and while I could have stuffed it into the steamer pot, I was worried that having the plastic wrap in direct contact with the metal sides would melt it into the fiber.  So hubby - who came home right as I was finishing up applying the dye and scared the bejeezus out of me because I was working in the garage - made a mad dash run to the grocery store with me.  We wound up getting a 21 quart (5 1/4 gallon) stock pot, then sticking a strainer in the bottom to keep the yarn out of the water.  Even then, it barely fit.

Despite these unexpected difficulties, the whole dye went really well, and the fibers are currently drying and looking fab-u-lous, even better than the test skeins I did. :)

So. Much. Yarn.

My yarn swift and I spent about 6 hours of quality time together yesterday turning these:

With bonus fuzzy assistant!

Into these:

Tucked safely in a closet to protect them from said fuzzy assistant.

My yarn swift is a boss though.  I spent several weeks shopping around the interwebs looking for one that would expand to the right size to make good dyeing hanks - which, for my preferences, is about 8 feet in circumference.  Most umbrella swifts available only open up to about 60", and while I found some Amish swifts that can hold skeins up to 80", they were clearly all too small. And there was no way in hell I was winding 9000+ yards of yarn by hand around some chairs.

I'm an adult, dammit. I have standards.

After looking through several knitting websites, I finally decided to check Amazon (which I really should know by now has absolutely everything) and found one from a company I'd never heard of before: Stanwood.  Turns out they're an importer who carries bonsai tools, lawn sculptures... and knitting stuff. Interesting.  But their large yarn swift opens up to 8.5 ft circumference and was only $48 (compared to $60+ for smaller swifts from other websites), so I was pretty much sold on it.

And you guys... seriously... you guys, it's awesome.  I may or may not have hugged it when I took it out of the shipping box, and may or may not continue to lovingly stroke it several times a day.  Look at this thing:

My husband and I have side-by-side nerd stations.

Do not judge us, emulate us.

I've never in my life encountered a swift so big, and I love it.  I only have two complaints: 

1. I wish the bit that secured it to the table opened up a little further. Right now it can fit on a 1.5" thickness, which is about 1/4" too small to clamp onto my coffee table so I could watch TV while winding. First world problems.
2. I wish it had come with washers to cushion the moving parts from each other.  Wood squeaking on wood really starts to grate on your nerves after a little while; after more than 6 hours, I was about to strangle somebody.

Overall though, I am quite happy with it.  I might get my husband's former boss, who's a machinist, to make some sort of cranking mechanism so I'm not spinning it by hand the whole time.

And while hubby's out of town on business, I might just tuck it into bed beside me.