Dyeing – Page 10 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Another Reason Knitting Is Good For Your Soul

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

Knitting is good for your soul. Anyone who knits can tell you that.

And here is yet more proof for that proposition.

This lovely yarn is being sent to some wonderful knitters who sent money, generous amounts of money, to the Red Cross to support tornado recovery. To thank them for their thoughtfulness, they are receiving some of the newest Elliebelly colorways. Starting at the left side with the paintbrush colorway and moving clockwise, they include Good Day, Gulf Shores, P. Campbell, Kaleidoscope (not new, but oh so much fun for me to dye again!), Grapevine, and Steampunk.

Knitters always seem to be involved in helping others, and it's particularly gratifying to see this small amount of yarn turn into help for people who are trying to restart their lives. Thank you knitters!

This Morning I Bring You Beautiful Things From The Garden

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

I was out early, dyeing some yarn, which led to this:

Early in the morning it's quiet and beautiful and you can hear the birds singing on our street. And the light is beautiful. So, despite my best intentions to take pictures of the Dream in Color Shrug that I finished last night, I have a little hijack to show you beautiful things from the garden this morning. Shrug pictures later — I promise.

My Sister-in-Law gave me daylilies for my birthday about a decade ago. They are still incredibly beautiful.

As is the Echinacea, which I had to replant this year as mine suffered some form of disease that led to mishappen leaves. It's now back to its prior beauty.

I still have a few late Gardenias blooming. Their perfume always reminds me of my Grandmother who grew them on an enormous, beautiful bush.

Our roses are particularly heavenly right now.

And I have high expectations for the tomato plants, mostly cherry tomatoes, that I tuck in empty spaces in the border so that playing children in late summer can snack without coming inside. This is a favorite in our garden every summer.

One of the best things we did, besides underground sprinklers, when we worked on our yard early this year is the long stone wall that prevents erosion alongside our driveway. It is pretty and the cats are incredibly fond of its warm, wide ledge which allows them to perch next to their beloved Catnip. Hermione has decimated the patch she was particularly fond of, and is now reduced to sleeping on the young Rosemary hedge.

This, of course, was the best part of my early morning garden, my faithful helper Ollie, who loves all things outdoors. Not only does he love to run and jump on the new wall, he thinks the $6 nozzle I bought for the hose at Home Depot last weekend is the most righteous toy ever invented. As far as Ollie is concerned, the entire garden grows just for him. I couldn't agree more.

Knitting with Silk Hankies. Who Wants to Try It?

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

Silk hankies anyone?

I've had so many conversations with people about knitting with silk hankies since my original post on the topic, which piggy-backed on Stephanie McPhee's project, that I decided to share some of my hand-dyed hankies with a lucky reader. Post in the comments below (make sure I have an email address so I can contact you if you win) and I'll pick a winner next Friday night.

To get everyone started, here's a YouTube video that's very helpful. It has very cute cats as an added plus.

Blog Give Away: Some Yarn for the New Year

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

If you need a little yarn inspiration to get the new year off to a good start, you've come to the right place! Leave a comment below and I'll have the kids draw a random name on New Year's Day to send this yarn on to. Make sure I've got an email contact for you, or come back to check and see if you've won! (My apologies, but I can only ship to a U.S. address)

This is a very special yarn from Sheila at Wool 2 Dye 4, one of my favorite places to buy luxurious, but well priced, undyed yarn. In addition to being incredibly nice, Sheila has the knack for sourcing some of the finest base yarns around, and she always seems to be first with new ideas. This yarn, Sheila's Sparkle, is a blend of Superwash Merino with just enough nylon so your knitted item will hold its shape, and a little bit of Stellina for sparkle. We aren't talking tinsel bright here — just enough sparkle to give your new pair of socks a little bit of whimsy. It's perfection and as an added plus, the yarn was lots of fun to dye. The give away skein is 438 yards of lovely sock weight yarn in Elliebelly's Pink Love colorway.

Thanks Sheila, for giving us another wonderful yarn to place with! In addition to the give away skein, I dyed a skein for myself, to use for Ellie's Barn Raising Quilt.

Easy Play Silk Gift Wrap — Naturally Dyed

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

Who knew it could be this easy? I decided to do a quick experiment with Tumeric, a big piece of silk, and a little bit of time. Ignoring all of the directions I found on the web, which suggested I boil the Tumeric in my pot, let it sit for hours, then carefully strain the dye bath before immersing my silk, I dumped a 1/4 of a cup of Tumeric into my big boiling pot. I took some care to whisk it in until all was thoroughly dissolved. While all this was going on, my big square of silk was soaking in some water (to open up the fibers to accept the dye more readily and evenly). I plunged it in.

I spent several minutes gently stirring for even dye distribution. I pushed down the air pockets that formed. And then I left it to sit, walking by to stir it every few minutes while keeping the pot just below a simmer for 45 minutes. I turned off the pot and let it sit for a couple of hours to cool.

That lovely golden color is brighter than it will be when the silk is dry, but I had no runoff issues while rinsing it off (although my pot does seem to have taken on a permanent tinge of Tumeric, which is fine by me since it is one of those herbs that is medically beneficial). I did rinse carefully to get off the fine Tumeric powder I saw here and there on the silk, but the color is very even across the piece.

The possibilities from here on are unlimited:

overdye it with another color for a crackle effect
stamp holiday motifs on it with paint
sew on some beads or ribbon
applique
print out fabric gift tags on the computer and sew onto the silk

I haven't quite decided where I'm going from here, but I'm really happy to have an easy, naturally dyed gift wrap that can be used again and again (if the kids don't swipe it for a superhero cape or butterfly wings). Please let me know if the comments if you do your own reuseable gift wrap and have any ideas to share!

A Big Box of Yarn

Posted on November 14, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

Last month, one of my favorite online vendors, Necessitate, did an auction to benefit a charity that works with the families of terminally ill infants. How could you not want to contribute?

I found a listing from KimberlyR for a "Scrappy Rug." She was offering to knit a big bulky I-Cord spiral rug, using the winning bidder's yarn scraps. Yarn love. So I am sending her this.

I know. It's not exactly scraps. But I decided it would be fun to have a rug done up in my favorite Elliebelly colorways. I had some bulky superwash yarn — an American produced yarn that had never been part of Elliebelly (its a sort of superwash cousin to the Talia bulky weight yarn I did), but that I had purchased a large amount of to do some knitting for my kids — and I seemed to have a lot of random skeins. Perfect!

From L-R, Top to bottom, that's Pallas, Agatha Wants to Win, Moulin Rouge, Nightingale, Farmhouse, and Alphabet Block. (They look different because the yarn hasn't been reskeined after dyeing to mix up the colors. This is something many dyers, including me, do because it gives a better idea of how the yarn will look knit up).

Marble Angel, Sacajawea, Sunflower, Retro-Kitchen, Pretty Kim, and Sakura.

And finally, Treasure, Peter Rabbit, Guppy Creek, Crayon, Urban Myth, Cleo and Baba Yaga.

I'm sending Kim 26 skeins in all — there are two each of Urban Myth, Baba Yaga, Cleo, Agatha, Sacajawea, Sunflower and Crayon. Each of these skeins comes in at 105 grams/3.7 ounces, so there is a lot of yarn goodness in the box. I thought she would enjoy having a lot to play with. I'll use her leftovers in scrappy hoodies I'm knitting for the kids.

The box will be on the way to her in the morning. I can't wait to see the results!

Knitting with Silk Hankies

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

Stephanie McPhee had a post earlier this week that was fascinating. She talked about knitting mittens from silk hankies.

This is likely not the item that comes to mind when you think "silk hankie." It is not a neatly hemmed square of shiny fabric. Rather, it is a single cocoon spread out over a frame to dry. There is more on the process here.

I loved Stephanie's post, because I had recently found some silk hankies tucked away in my studio. I had dyed and used a small amount in a fabric collage. I was wondering what to do with them.

Stephanie's post made me think it would be fun to experiment with knitting them like she was, but alas, she had no directions. It turned out to be a simple process. The hankies are deeply layered, so the greatest difficulty is in thinning them out. It's important to pull just one gossamer fine layer off the top. Making a hole in the middle permits you to gently pull the fiber around until you have a big fine lasso loop of silk.

If you continue to gently stretch the fibers out you can achieve a "yarn" of your desired thickness, and gently pull the circle apart so you have a beginning and an end. Then, you begin to knit.

You see now why it caught my interest. I decided to knit just a bit to experiment with how it works. It's a soft but at the same time sort of rough looking fabric. And look! A big tail of silk winding off of your knitting! If you wanted to be precise, I suppose you could pull your hankies out to an even measure for a uniform fabric, although that would seem to defeat a lot of the fun of this process to me.

I'm sensing little silk hankie knitting kits as Christmas presents for some of the charming, crafty, young ladies in my life. If you want to try this, there are plenty of dyed silk hankies available on etsy, but you could easily dye some of your own or try this with undyed. This is pure fun for an evening when you find yourself in need of a little destress, but be forewarned, everyone who is near you is going to be completely fascinated by the process and insist on getting involved, whether it's little ones who want to stretch the hankies or grown men who want to try and knit a stitch. There is something fascinating about knitting more or less straight off of the cocoon!