Lollygagging.

I am still taking my sweet time on those Coastal Hoodie sleeves!  Luckily I did manage to get one done last night...including all of the ends woven in.  It was definitely a pain, but I really love the stripes and the reverse stockinette and there were no easy shortcuts.  As soon as I finish this post, it is back to the mines for me.

So I have been dyeing more yarn while avoiding the sleeves.  This time I used the leftovers from "B♥MB."  I had poured the leftover dye into a mason jar, since after sprinkling the dye powder over the yarn and then spraying it with water there was quite a bit leftover...about 700mL.  I used 200gm of Soft Silk yarn, a single ply 50/50 silk/merino blend.  For this dye job I used an immersion technique, also called kettle dyeing...my old 10qt turkey roaster came in handy for this.

I filled the roaster most of the way with water and added the leftover dye then turned on the heat.  Once it was steaming, after about 20 min, I added the citric acid. It was already looking pretty neat, since the gray and black dyes took up much quicker that the fuchsia.  After the dye bath was exhausted, the yarn was pink with some grayish areas.

I decided to darken it up a bit since I already had a commercial yarn that was pretty close in color and texture (Malabrigo Silky Merino in Madre Perla).  I used a mixture of blue and purple to deepen the current color and since the water was already hot and acidic...it struck quickly and a little mottled.  That was exactly what I was hoping for!  Here are some shots of the yarn:


After the leftover dye was exhausted...before the blue/purple overdye.


Soaking in the sink with some Soak.


Dried skeins.

Everything but...

My poor hoodie, the sleeves are still not complete! At least I have finally made it past the elbow on one...progress is progress.  Of course I am not helping matters (nor is marathon coaching and training).  The past week or so, I have been doing everything I could to avoid working on those sleeves, such as:

I tried out the (♥AMAZING♥) Contiguous sleeve method on a new sweater. Really, you should check this out! It is like top down set in sleeves with the ease of a raglan...here's the Ravelry group with tons of info from the originator of the method.

I made twelve pounds of soap, then went on an ordering binge to restock my soap supplies so I can make more soap.  Then I trawled around the soap making forums I used to hang around for more soap making ideas and projects.  Here's the soap:

Definitely not as pretty as I used to be able to make, but I haven't soaped in over a year...and I decided to try a new coloring method. Not my best idea.

Finally, I broke out the dyes again! I did end up getting the Kindle version of Hand Dying Yarn and Fleece by Gail Callahan and I also downloaded the "Gorgeous Hand Dyed Yarn at Home," pdf from Three Irish Girls (I did get the gradient one, too and I do not recommend it...the method is super complicated and time consuming).  Both had good tips and featured slightly different methods, but also had a lot of information that I had already gathered online.  It is nice though to have the information neat and in either a pdf or in my Kindle app...especially when my interwebs get funky (which is weekly, thanks Comcast).

I did some handpainting, which came out kind of awful, it was my fault for getting a bit overzealous with the acid.  Then I tried to do a quick glaze; throwing it into hot, acidy water with a smidge of a darker color to tone it down...I think that just made matters worse.  So today we won't be seeing any pictures of that poor skein ;) Hopefully an overdye in a completely different color will save it.

Happily I did have a success yesterday! I used this method of dying...so much fun! I went for a little more order when sprinkling my dye powders...I used a .5 gm scoop of Jacquard Hot Fuchsia for one end of the skeins, then 4 - .5 gm scoops of Jacquard Silver Gray for the middles and a .5 gm scoop of Greener Shades Midnight Black for the other ends.  In hindsight I could've used about half of the gray, but I am still in love with this method and the results.  Unfortunately, I was having to much fun during, so I forgot to take in progress pics, but here is the finished yarn:




I am calling it "B♥MB," since it is kind of like a crazy fluorescent explosion!