Honey - Don't touch the yarn - it's hot!

Wednesday night I tried out Louet's new sock dying kit. It was fun. I made mistakes and the yarn still turned out. The kit contains three 50 gm skeins of yarn, 3 jars of dye, a squeeze bottle, wool wash, directions for dying and a sock pattern.

I mixed the dye with too much water. I read the numbers on Sharon's electric teapot as ounces not cups or whatever those numbers meant on the side of the pot. Sharon says the pot is from Norway and she has never thought about those numbers. So who knows. I probably used three times more water needed to mix the dye.

The entire process took less than an hour and a half. Soak the yarn for half an hour in wool wash to prepare it for dying. The actual dying time was about 30 minutes and then the yarn goes in the microwave for two 4 minute "bakes". Then it dries, gets washed, dries again, and gets knit.

The squeeze bottle is not an exact instrument. The squeeze bottle urped dye unexpectedly. Your ability to target and control the dye placement is limited. The wet dye does travel/seep into the yarn.

I am not a zen, contemplative person making an artistic statement in an altered state. I did not have a master plan for these skeins. I made some stripes and some dots. So, your time to dye may take longer if you are more into the process.

I will post a picture of my results. I used the brown color ways. The kits come in brown, blues, reds, pinks and greens. They are in stock at Arcadia Knitting.

The title is what I said as I brought home the skeins fresh from the microwave to dry in the bathroom: "Honey - Don't touch the yarn - it's hot!"

Kathy