Cotton chenille-handdye job pt.1

Dyeing cotton Chenille
Yesterday morning I dyed some cotton chenille with MX fiber reactive dyes. This process started by soaking the yarn in warm water and Synthrapol. As this is a bulky gauge, I let it sit for over an hour.

Then I let it soak again in salt and soda ash fixer which allows for painting the yarn.

Here it is fixed and ready to dye laid out on trash bags and plastic wrap:

Peace Fleece

This week I am expecting some Peace Fleece and merino from handpainted yarn on ebay. I hoping that I get the merino in time for the Knitting Olympics, starting Friday. I am going to make Clapotis from knitty.com. I had plans to make a tote with the Peace Fleece, but who knows...

Dishcloth monotony

I've been knitting a lot of dishcloths lately. I love using them in the kitchen, makes wiping the counters ~cool~. I am participating in a dishcloth exchange with the yahoo group. I ambitiously decided to knit my exchange cloth using some cool boucle-y type cotton. Provides good texture for scrubbing. I still need to weave the loose ends--my favorite!

My first spindle!

Yay! I received my spindle and wool on Friday. I finally sat down and tried it out today. While my results are pretty variable (thick/thin), I was overall happy with my first try. I am still trying to figure out where/how to hold the unspun yarn so that it pulls off easy, but I've only just begun... I received 2 oz of wool. I'm hoping to make some mittens. They might have to wait until next winter at this rate!

Silk vs. Wool

Last Sunday I dyed some two wool skeins and a recycled silk skein. I used the same colorways/dyes on both. Notice a difference? I think that the silk was not properly scoured. I read several insights into how this should be done, but conflicting perspectives that using ash would dull the sheen. Pastel it is.


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