I’m Dyeing Here

Trying not to use my hands is driving me a little batty here, and it’s about to get worse. I’ve finally received the first round of editing to do on the book. There isn’t much to do and it has a deadline of the 31st January, so I’ve been able to plan 3-4 weeks of rest. It’s a minor miracle that I have the opportunity at all, so I really need to make sure I don’t spoil it, and not use my hands any more than strictly necessary.

I may go completely bonkers.

While the “Knitwear Alteration and Repair” item on my projects list is going to have to wait until February, last week I was able to fit in the “Dyeing Day”. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the crock pot working. It appears to have the wrong plug/cord, which is strange. Perhaps it got swapped accidentally on the last dyeing day organised by the knitting group I used to hang out with, but that happened years ago and I’m amazed I didn’t notice earlier.

I started with the “Circular Vest With Sleeves” from 2009:

The colour was always a problem, since I look terrible in and avoid anything too yellowy. So I overdyed with red:

I wove “The Drapey Scarf” back in 2008 out of some $1 balls of yarn I bought at Dimmeys that has a percentage of cashmere in it so small that it only counts on a psychological level. I knit a top out of it that, despite being knit very loosely, shrank to about 3/4 it’s original size and I recently felted it to make a vest. But it does weave up beautifully.

I dyed it purple, with a dip-dye method to get an ‘ombre’ effect:

Finally, I dyed a scarf woven from undyed handspun leftover from a big charity scarf weaving binge in 2009.

It went straight into the purple dye bath and came out much improved, and still gloriously soft.

A few nights ago I tried weaving on the knitters loom while watching tv. It only gave me a little flash of heat in my wrist – much less than typing this blog post does. Perhaps if I start to go a little mad from lack of creative activity, I’ll do just a little bit of weaving. While wearing my wrist brace, to make sure.

One thought on “I’m Dyeing Here

  1. Wow, I can’t believe you obtained that red from the darker green/brown!! I would have never expected that. The purples are beautiful.

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