Not much sewing happening around here!

Not much sewing but lots of dyeing and a bit of knitting ;)

As I go through a lot of procion dyes and they have a limited life on cotton, I thought I'd try them out as acid dyes (as you can do that too!) Simple Turquoise, Fuschia and Yellow and I couldn't help myself but make rainbow yarn hehe.

Procions start to lose the capability to bond with cotton the older they get but the dye portion of them is fine, its just the "glue" so to speak that breaks down. So using them as acid dyes I prepared the yarn - Bendigo Woollen Mills Melody in this case- with a vinegar soak as per normal wool dyeing. I then applied dye as normal, wrapped in cling wrap and steamed inside a steriliser. It worked! and I am thrilled at the result, and hoping some of my favourite colours translate ok to wool too.

And then I couldn't resist as I needed to knit it up to see how it turned out, I CO Celias emergency 1 day hat for my youngest. Great knit and a free pattern too! It just squeezed in with enough to weave in the end left over (ok I made it fit lol) She loves it to bits too which is pretty good for a not quite 2yo! My older girl Ellie likes it too, and it fits her as well, but she isn't allowed to touch it with Kayla around, bossy much?

I have overflowing bags of undyed yarn and just slipped and ordered some more Melody, whoops! so better get dyeing some more...

aha! a hat!

Hooray it's finished!!!

This hat had been giving me curry as I couldn't work out the best way to dye it, I even had a miserable test run on one of dd's old hats (lets just say its ummm colourful now but not quite how I wanted it lol). Then I tried playing with the sodium alginate for painting with dye instead. It thickens the dye so it doesn't run everywhere. Of course my first attempt with that was hilarious...I still have a jug of goo! what was rather interesting looking lumpy grainy stuff, actually turned to a gel the next day and went quite thick, like jelly!

Did anyone see Masterchef episode with the carnival/beach challenge, where they were making popcorn icecream, and Claire and Jonathon put in a heap of this stuff to thicken it, they had to guess how much to use. I had to laugh as thats the stuff I'm using exactly, but they were cooking with it.

My results were similar to theirs, but with dye! hehe Its actually seaweed of all things. It does work quite well for dye thickening, but then I'm no artist so then couldn't figure out how to paint it on, a couple of singlets to practice on and I still wasn't happy... was I ever going to get this hat finished?????  I even had a couple of goes putting the gooey dye in squirty bottles but nah, not worth the effort.

Then inspiration struck (yeah I know its more like what I usually do - thats slow inspiration for you... ) and tada! end result, one tie dyed hat... its still damp and drying but thought it was about time for a pic, dyeing with procion dyes can be so prolonged, especially in winter I feel like I'm not getting anywhere so piccies help me feel like I'm achieving hehe.

My other challenge I'd been wanting to try was a infant sized hoodie, it had been sitting in my basket for a month or two waiting for the chance and inspiration. In the end I grabbed it the other day, threw it in the soaking solution, and tied it, why not have another rainbow... lol. I am rather fond of my rainbow colours :)

So here I am quite pleased, a couple of the projects that had been stumping me as to how to dye them, and in the end they actually turned out like most of my items hehe! But I'm very happy with the results. Don't mess with what works is perhaps something I should keep in mind ;)