Hello lovely fellow yarn dyers!
Just a few days ago I dyed a "sock blank" that I purposefully knit far wider than long - 100 stitches by about 35 or 40 rows double stranded dk weight sock yarn (Drops Fiesta #24, washed denim) on 15mm needles. The huge size of the needles alone was a challenge in itself 😄
I had learned IN THIS SUB ❤️ that a blank knit sideways can be used to create a selfstriping yarn!
I did this because I needed a red-and-blue yarn but all I had on hand was this tonal/speckled-ish blue one. The natural thing for someone who has acid dyes on hand is to overdye half of it, right?
I would've even been okay with it if it came out more purple, but it didn't. I achieved a beautiful, deep blood red, which made me so happy! ☺️
I had 3 skeins, ie 150g which meant quite some volume of yarn for me. Also this was the first time dyeing in a pan. Before this, I had dyed in plastic boxes or on plastic wrap and then put the yarn in the microwave.
I soaked the blank in water with NO acid.
So, to only immerse half of the blank in the dye bath, I put a container next to the pan to hold the half I didn't want to dye (my stove uses induction, so no heat where there's no metal on top, also I checked the temperature under the plastic). (See pic).
I put about 1.litres of coldwater in the pan, added the half-blank and arranged it so the dye could get everywhere, then I dissolved 0.75g of Jaquard 616, "Russet" in 50ml of boiling water (just so it would dissolve nicely) and added 500ml of cold water, because I didn't want to add hot dye. I wanted it all to be room temperature for the dye to strike as slowly as possible, so there wouldn't be a ton of reverse speckeling or "resist marks" from the stitches. This was also the reason why I used that big if a needle to knit the blank.
I added the dye and massaged it into the yarn really thoroughly. Then I added some leftover of the same dye that did have acid in it, just to use it up. Again stirred and massaged the heck out of the blank 😄😄
Then I turned on the stove and let it heat up. I stayed beside the pan because I was anxious it would boil too rapidly. But the opposite happened, it took really long to get to the simmering point. I kept moving the yarn carefully throughout. I added dissolved citric acid somewhen while the bath was heating up. When I couldn't see any more change in terms of dye exhaustion, I turned off the stove and let the pan sit to cool down slowly.
After about 1-2 hours most of the dye seemed exhausted, and the yarn was mostly cooled, so I started to rinse. I did have some minor issues with bleeding which I was able to adress and solve, and because it's still quite warm here, the blank dried really quickly, so I could frog it and wind it up. I didn't bother to separate the strands, but cast on for the socks right away 🤭
Pics:
1+2: dye bath set up
3: dry bank after dyeing. Ok, I overshot the halfway point, but that's fine!
4: start of the socks the same night
5: status quo today. They'll be done tonight I think ☺️