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Dyeing Question

I've been trying to reduce my stash and have been working on a vintage baby jacket from an early 1940's publication. The pattern called for

3 oz of yarn. I had 4 oz of 100% merino sock yarn that had the same gauge, so thought I had ample yarn to make the jacket.

Nope. Made the fronts and back and didn't have enough for the sleeves. Ordered another hank of the same yarn & colorway, knowing the dye lot difference would be an issue. It was more of an issue than I anticipated. The first hank was varigated with cotton candy like colors with a little gray here and there. The second hank is the opposite. A lot of darker gray and fewer, more subtle, grayer colors than the first.

I'm not going to frog this project, dernit! I thought I'd first try making a swatch from each hank and soaking them together to see how much bleed occurs. I know most people try to avoid bleeding colors, but I wanted to see if I could acheive some kind of equilibrium. Even if the 2 swatches don't end up matching, I want them as close as possible to each other.

THEN, I thought I'd try to over-dye them with Koolaid, or something. I've never tried to dye anything before, and can get instructions on the Koolaid process online, but I first wanted to try bleeding the swatches.

My question is: How would I approach bleeding the colors, and making it stick, or will it? I know if it was a red sock in the white load, it would, but can I purposefully do this? Other than hot water, is there anything I need to add? I thought I'd follow the same instructions for Koolaid dyeing on Knitty, but without dye.

Any suggestions would be most gratefully accepted.

TIA

Hesira

PS: I forgot to mention, that I will make a bonnet of the darker yarn, and include that in the final over-dyeing, increasing the ratio of grayer yarn to brighter yarn, hence increasing the amount of bleed that could occur.

Reply to
hesira
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No need to knit swatches. Reel off 10' of each hank. Tie each length into a mini-hank and you'll be set.

I'd fill a white container of some sort with very hot water and a dab of detergent. Poke in the yarn samples and let them sit for a while, then stir briskly and see what sort of bleed you get. If it's little or none you'll have to overdye. If you have a substantial amount of bleed transfer your samples and their water into a pan, add a glug of vinegar, then boil heck out of the samples for about 20 mins. Allow to cool, rinse thoroughly, allow to dry, evaluate.

Then decide how to proceed.

Reply to
WoolyGooly

Thanks Woolie. That's so helpful about not knitting the swatches.

I will have to do this with knitted pieces in the end, though. Is there much difference in the way a knitted piece takes dye as opposed to unknitted yarn? I know it's essential to have the yarn in either case, completely wetted.

Also, if I over dye, and there is a discernable difference in the original yarns, will just dyeing darker cover that up?

Thanks for your help!

Hesira

Reply to
hesira

No, not really, unless the FO is very tightly knitted - if that's the case any dyestuffs may have a hard time penetrating and so require more soak/cook time and/or more dyestuff.

That depends on how dark "darker" is. Back to your sample hanks for testing!

Reply to
WoolyGooly

Well, my knitting's not particularly tight, or loose, just medium I guess, so I shouldn't have any trouble with that.

The sample hanks are soaking, and I can't wait to see what happens. Thanks so much for your help.

Hope you're feeling better!

Hesira

Reply to
hesira

Reply to
Alan

Vintage pattern weight specification for yarn lie, lie, lie (well that's unfair really, but modern yarns cannot be substituted on weight, yarns are different now).

VP

Reply to
Vintage Purls

Unfortunately, VP, I know that only too well, now.

Sadly, shaking my head :)

Hesira

Reply to
hesira

I did a wee experiment recently with a vintage pattern for what claimed to be a half-ounce scarf:

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Reply to
Vintage Purls

With a 10' sample it won't really matter. But yes, I'd normally maintain a dyepot just below a simmer, in the 190F range.

Reply to
WoolyGooly

That's a great post!

After I realized I wasn't going to have enough yarn to finish the jacket, I counted the stitches in one of the pieces, and compared that to the weight of the piece. Then I figured the number of stitches in the entire project, and did some math to figure out how much yarn it would take to finish it. As it turns out, the pattern requires 4.3 oz of yarn compared to the 3 oz the pattern suggests.

FIRST. It saves time in the end.

Hesira

scarf:

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> VP

Reply to
hesira

I tend to just estimate yarn quantities off similar sized modern patterns (I'm not that disciplined to do the maths all the time). Another good argument for swatching though - you can do a check on yarn quantity at the same time.

I'm kind of glad some one else has been burnt by the weight specifications in vintage patterns though - makes me feel better about some of my past blunders. :)

I wonder if you could strip some of the existing colour out of you garment before you dye it. There are commercial products to do this - it may help get a more even coverage.

VP

Reply to
Vintage Purls

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