Wednesday, June 26, 2013

From Fleece to Fabulous

My first Fleece to fabulous project was a hat for my hunny.  spun, plied, dyed and nalbound.  it is one awesome looking hat.



I used the Oslo stitch to make his "Fire and Ice" hat.  This was really easy and a great way to work on stitch technique and speed gauges. I used a nice White Pulworth wool and when I spun it up boy did it have fly a ways!  I used a lint brush on my shirt when I was done. and had enough there to spin for another few minutes if I had wanted to.  Love that stuff its the silk of wools.

When I dyed it I pre-soaked the yarn in 50/50 vinegar and hot water for a bit to open everything up and prep for the dyes.  I then let the majority of the solution drain from the skeins back into the bowl, and laid the moist yarn skeins onto sheets of cellophane.  Then I grabbed the bottles of red and blue food coloring and started dripping over half the skein in red and half the skein in blue.  I left a bit of a gap for the colours to wick into.  One of my skeins wicked more than I was expecting but aht is ok it still looks great!
once I was finished dripping  the dyes I gently pressed the colors into the yarn making sure it was thoroughly in the yarns.  then I folded up the cellophane burrito style so there would not be any drippage and into the microwave it went.

I microwaved the skeins one at a time for 3 minutes.  boy were they hot!  while one was in the microwave the other was sitting in its microwave safe bowl.  I was surprised at first to see how the burritos expanded while cooking.  I did the 3 minutes on 3 minutes out 4-5 times.  then it was off to the rise water.

Carefully I let each skein soak in very warm water for a minute or two after removing the scorching hot plastic.  each soak was put into progressively cooler water A) to help bring the yarn to a hold-able state and B) to rinse out the excess dyes so it wouldn't bleed when washed later.




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