Archive for the 'Dyeing' Category

Pysanky Dyes – the results are in!

Published on August 16, 2009 in Dyeing, Fiber Arts, Pysanky and Weaving. 1 Comment

Pysanky Dyes on Roving - Sample Card

i have finished up my testing of the Pysanky dyes on wool. they held up extremely well!!

above you can see a peek at my new color sample card. after seeing how well the test pieces were holding up, i went ahead and dyed up 1/2 oz. samples of each of the 15 dyes i had on hand. my dyes come from the Ukrainian Gift Shop… and they carry 17 colors of dye, so i’m only missing 2 from my color card.

so, what were the results of all my colorfast tests, you ask? in my last post about this process, you saw the results of the sun test. the next test was the washfast test. i washed 2  of the swatches in a gentle handwash with Euclan. there was only a tiny tint to the water. not bad. so i threw them into a load of jeans in my machine with harsh detergent. also not bad! they gently fulled a bit (much less than i’d expected), but the color held up really well. i decided to toss the sun test swatches in with them for the rest of the wash loads. they went through 4 more loads and felted to within an inch of their lives! but the color still held up extremely well. i am completely satisfied with the results!

Pysanky Dyes Colorfast Testing

and here are some “action shots” of the new color samples… one shot of the wrapped and rolled newly dyed rovings cooling after their turns in the microwave to steam. and another shot of them all lined up drying in the sun.

in the near future, i will post a tutorial on dyeing wool roving with pysanky dyes.

Pysanky Dyes on Roving Pysanky Dyes on Roving - Drying

Color!

Published on July 30, 2009 in Dyeing, Fiber Arts, Pysanky, Spinning and Weaving. 2 Comments

a while back i dyed some roving with pysanky dyes and spun it up. i’ve been meaning to knit some swatches and do some colorfast testing, but never seemed to have the time… ok, i admit it, i’m not a huge fan of swatching.

at the recent women’s retreat up at Tahoe, i took my Hazel Rose Multi Loom with me and wove some swatch squares. perfect for colorfast testing!

woven squares

3 squares of each colorway to test…. 1. for sun/light fast testing, 2. for detergent/wash testing, and 3. for a control.

the first test was sun…. i took some black card stock and folded it over to cover 1/2 of each square… exposing half to the sun and keeping half protected.

colorfast testing for Pysankky dyes

i put them on the table out back that gets 12 hours of blasting sun…. (still trying to find plants that will survive that glare) after a solid week (can’t remember if i left them out for 7 or 8 days) this was the result…

colorfast testing for Pysankky dyes

not bad! i’ve seen many commercially dyed fabrics/yarns/etc fade more than that in less time!  i knew going in that the pysanky dyes on eggs fade in direct sun. i wasn’t expecting them to be great with it. this is very encouraging though… soon, the wash test.

Spinning Away… long over due update!

Published on January 29, 2009 in Dyeing, Fiber Arts, Pysanky and Spinning. 2 Comments

boy has it been awhile! between being very busy over the fall/winter… and being burnt out as far as all things online goes… well, i’ve not kept up well. but it’s a new year…

last fall, i got a new toy.
my new toy!

that’s my Babe double treadle spinning wheel. it may not look like much… but oh how i luvz it!

i thought it would take me a while to shift from spindle to wheel… but it was pretty easy to transition. my first bit of spinning on it was (of course) a bit lumpy bumpy….
handspun

but it wasn’t long before i was producing some fairly nice yarn. and quickly too! compared to a spindle, this puppy’s a Ferrari!
handspun
and suddenly, i was producing yarn quickly enough that i felt comfortable letting it go on to be knitted (instead of just kept in a pretty bowl and petted from time to time, lol). first i played with some scraps…
Handspun Coffee Cuff Handspun Coffee Cuff

and then i moved on to something a little more substantial…

Handspun Habitat

it’s the Habitat hat pattern by Jared Flood. i love the pattern. i know the colors (which don’t show up in this photo well at all) don’t show off the cables very well… but it’s for me and it is what i wanted this yarn to become :) so i don’t care.

next up was a very october-y bit of fun…
Fractal Stripe 3

which became my first handspun socks!i love them so much! i’ve worn them around the house all winter. i’ve worn them so much that i just had to darn them already.
Witches Gone WildWitches Gone Wild

i also played around a bit with dyeing some roving… with Pysanky Dyes!
Pysanky dyes on WoolPysanky dyes on WoolPysanky dyes on WoolPysanky dyes on Wool

which became lovely yarn…

handspunhandspun

and i did some spinning for Christmas! this was a gift for my SIL…

handspun

things have slowed down a bit now because i couldn’t get much time to spin over the busy holidy season… and now i’m spinning some laceweight that is taking forever  (compared, of course, to the rest of my wheel spinning… compared to spindling, this is still super fast) because of the mega yardage i’m getting.