Dye, Dye again

I love dyeing so much it’s silly. It just makes me happy and I like to see how stuff turns out. Here’s some of the pokeweed. Just plain. No modifications.

And this is some of the pokeweed variegated with yellow food coloring. Look at the cool orange it made! And all my awesome speckles. I was worried because you need heat to set food coloring and I knew pokeweed will turn brown if you get it too hot, but everything worked fine.

The rest of the pokeweed yarn is sitting in a bath with the rest of the black beans. You’re not supposed to let the yarn touch the beans, because something in the beans will turn the yarn gray where it touches, but I’m trying to make a multicolored yarn. What the fuck do I care if there’s some gray in there? I don’t know how long I’ll let this sit, but it’s sitting for now.

Then I took a good hard look at my cabbage and blueberry and blackberry dyed yarns and decided to give them a little help looking okay once the natural dye starts to fade.

I bought myself a yarn swift and a ball roller and I’m a little in love, I must tell you. I don’t think I’m in desperate enough need of a knitty-noddy to buy myself one, but I am putting it in my letter to Santa.