#when looking at two skeins of the same colorway but different lots

[craftycoola]

important question: what do you call two skeins of hand-dyed yarn that are the same colorway, but come from different dye lots? like... sibling skeins?

[smallpotatoknitwear]

Current WIP blankets!

I’ve been doing a lot of blanket-making in quarantine. Before April 2020, I had made a single blanket in my entire knitting/crocheting career. In 2020, I made four blankets and started five others!!! I have a friend giving me a lot of grief (in a loving way) about how many unfinished blankets I have laying around, and I took some photos to show them, and decided to turn it into a whole post because I never post anything original here. I’ll have to do a post about the ones I finished last year soon, too, because I’m really proud of them!

(Please don’t mind the mess of yarn on my floor; I was in the middle of reorganizing some of it when I took these photos. Also, my room is generally messy, don’t judge me.)

Ten-stitch blanket

The only knit blanket I’m working on right now! I’m about three cakes into this blanket, and am consistently surprised by how big it is every time I pull it out, because I don’t know when the last time I worked on it was (oops). I’m using Caron Chunky Cakes in Rainbow Jellies!

Granny Stripes

This blanket is absolutely massive. It’s over 8 feet wide and being worked flat, since it’s granny stripes. I’m using Red Heart Super Saver Stripes in Retro Stripe. I have a total of 33 skeins (I think) for this blanket. I’m only getting about three inches out of each skein, if that, so I honestly hope that it’s enough to make the whole blanket!!! I’d love to do some matching throw pillows for it at some point, but we’ll see if I ever get around to that lol. First I have to finish the blanket, anyways.

Granny Rectangle

This is a Yarnspirations pattern for Caron Chunky Cakes yarn, although I fully intend to make the blanket larger than what the pattern calls for. Since this photo was taken, I’ve worked on the blanket, and it’s noticably bigger already! I’m aiming for it to be the next one I finish. I’m planning to use about 9 cakes in the end (unless the rectangle-ness of the pattern makes it an absurd size with that many) even though it only calls for 5, because I like giant blankets. I’m currently finishing up skein 4, and it’s getting to a very comfortable lapghan size! I’m using Caron Chunky Cakes in Sweet and Sour.

Corner-to-corner Scrap Blanket

This is the third scrap blanket I started in 2020 (the other two were Not-your-granny’s square blankets) and the second c2c. When I was trying to figure out how exactly to use scraps for a c2c, I decided to just collect all of the yarn I wanted to use for the blanket and sort it into two piles, putting balls/skeins of yarn that were about the same size into each pile. I also have a few pounds (one-pound skeins I was gifted during spring cleaning at work in 2019) of some less-than-gorgeous green yarn that worked really well with many of the other colors I had pulled for this blanket, so I’ve been doing single-row stripes of that between every other color I use. When bringing a different shade of green into the blanket, I’ve been doing a stripe of the tie-in green, a stripe of cream or purple that I also have an insane amount of, the new color of green, and then another row of cream/purple before the buffer row of green into the next color. (You can kind of see where I used the cream between the grean and the cream/green/teal variegated stripe, and purple before the final very dark green stripe at my working edge). The blanket is currently about 4.5 feet-ish wide? and I’m aiming to end up with a 6x6 foot square at the smallest, because that’s about the size I aim for for my own blankets and the friend I’m making this for is taller than me!!! My scrap yarn (which isn’t entirely scraps, but is also just some leftovers that I don’t know what else to do with and yarn for abandoned projects that got absorbed into this one) is actually going a lot further than I thought it would, so hopefully this turns into a giant, cozy blanket!!!

Granny Square Quilt

Confession time: I love Caron Chunky Cakes yarn. Sure, it has a lot (and I mean a LOT) of flaws, like a lack of consistent strand weight, differentiation in colors within the same dye lot, variation in color order in skeins, and the fact that there’s at least one break where the yarn has been knotted together in EVERY cake, but it’s soft, comes in pretty colors, and is fairly hardy. The first quarantine blanket I made was out of the Ballet Sorbet colorway, and I’ve slept with that every night for several months (with a break over the summer because of the heat!) and, while it’s a little fuzzy, it’s not in particularly bad shape. Also, I machine washed AND DRIED it and it held up amazingly, so I really can’t complain.

I’m using all my Chunky Cakes scraps from other blankets (plus the blues/turquoises, which were leftover from a blanket my mom made) to make a granny square quilt. I can get two of these squares (often with a tiny bit left over) from each color stripe in a cake, so I can get about 18-19 squares from a single cake. I have 74 made as of this picture (I’ve made a few others since, but not many) from the colorways Ballet Sorbet, Cherries Jubilee, Blue Moon, and Bumbleberry. I need somewhere between 144-290 squares for the blanket I want to make (144 for a 12x12 square quilt, but I’m aiming for a giant one that’s more like 15x18) so uhhh I’m not even close. But they look really pretty all sorted out!!!

What have y’all been making lately? What are some of your favorite projects/finished objects from 2020?

[dyersupplier]

Dyeing Techniques Overview

Continuing with the previous article’s format of “defining” certain terms, I wanted to give a bit of info on various dyeing techniques and the finished products can be created with them. I know that there are techniques out there that I’m not going to cover, but my goal here is to cover the most commonly used ones. That way as you venture into this colorful world, you can better interpret the ideas you have into colorways you and others will love.

Note: I don’t have photos for every single technique, but I will include photos of what I can. They will all be photos I’ve taken myself, either of my own hand-dyes or others, and I will credit other brands as necessary.

Gradient: a gradual shift between two or more colors. This can be accomplished within a single skein with long color sections or an injection process. You can also create a gradient across multiple skeins, as pictured below. However you decide to divvy up the yarn itself, whether within a single skein or a set of skeins, you create the gradient itself by mixing the dyes in changing ratios that shift the hues from one to the next. If you want a quick color change, use a lower fraction, like 1/3: first cup would be 100% color A, the second cup would be 50% color A and 50% color B, and the third cup would be 100% color B. Then for a more gradual color change, use a higher fraction, like 1/6: first cup is 100% color A, second cup is 80%/20% color A/B, third cup is 60%/40% color A/B, fourth cup is 40%/60% color A/B, fifth cup is 20%/80% color A/B, and the final cup is 100% color B. Lots of math, but if you measure carefully and keep good notes, you'll be able to create seamlessly flowy gradients--and reproduce them if desired!

Hand-painted: the term used for the process of applying dyes to the yarn by hand in various patterns, color sequences, etc., to create a variegated colorway. You can use a foam brush, you can pour the dye out of a measuring cup, or apply it in other ways as you prefer. You generally use a flat pan of some type and just enough water to heat set the dye, but you intentionally avoid completely submerging the yarn, which gives you a higher degree of control over where the dyes go. This also creates starker color changes for a higher contrast look.

(photo by me of Cameo Yarns colorway Prim)

Injection dyeing: this is a fun process you can use to create a gradient effect within a single skein. First up, wind the hank using a ball-winder instead of leaving it in a loop. Then put it in the pot to make sure it's completely saturated. Then you use a giant syringe or baster full of dye to inject the color into the center of the skein. It will slowly bleed outward within the ball, creating a dark-to-light transition. You can include a second color by putting dye into the pot around the ball and letting it slowly bleed into the ball. 

Kettle-dyed: this process involves fully submerging the yarn in the dye bath and having extra water in the pot to leave room for the yarn to freely move in the pot and absorb the dye. It can be single-colored (semi-solid/tonal) or multi-colored (variegated) as desired, and it gives a more watercolor effect to the colors than hand-painting generally does.

Ombré: this type of colorway typically involves one very long, gradual transition between a light and mid or dark colorway. It can also be called a gradient technically.

Over-dyed: if you have some yarn you're not in love with anymore, or maybe your mad science experiment in the dye pots didn't turn out quite right, you don't have to toss the yarn! You can over-dye it and revitalize it! It's the same process as dyeing it up the first time, you'll just be a touch more limited on what you can do depending on the colors in the yarn that you're wanting to dye over. Light colors are easy and should be fine with mid-tones. If it's a mid-tone yarn, you'll be looking at dyeing it with darker colors unless you want to change the color by "mixing" the new dye with the existing tone. It's truly an experiment, so you'll have to see for yourself how the colors play with each other!

Self-striping: when dye is applied in super long color sequences that when knitted, it creates a striped fabric without having to mess with changing colors and carrying yarn or weaving in a bunch of ends. Very popular for socks!

Semi-solid: when the yarn is all the same color, but there are light and dark variations within the hue rather than being completely solid. This occurs when different parts of the hank absorb the dye at different rates, creating places that are more saturated, yielding darker tones, or less saturated, yielding lighter tones.

Solid: an even color application without light and dark variation. 

Speckled: a technique that creates spots of color on the yarn that add a splash of color and fun texture.

Tonal: same product as semi-solid, just a different way to say it.

Variegated: this term is used for colorways with more than one dye color. This can be accomplished via multiple processes as outlined above--hand-painted or kettle dyed.

I think I've covered the most common terms and the most widely-used processes in dyeing yarn, but if there's something I've forgotten, definitely leave a comment so I can add to this list! I hope this gives you a strong foundation from which you can truly build a love of this craft and enjoy the work of your hands and imagination!

About Me

My name is Annie, and I’m a knitwear designer and yarn-dyer living south of Atlanta, GA. When I’m not doing yarn-related things, my other hobbies consist of reading, playing ultimate frisbee, photography, and video games.