Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Green Meanie!

Inspired by the beautiful greens of Emerald City over on the Weekend Whirls, I set about dyeing some fibre in shades of green. I've seen some great green results with the limes and blues of Koolaid, so gave it a go, I used 1 sachet of Koolaid per ounce as recommended, but all I got was this, I started spinning it up, maybe I thought it was going to miraculously transform into a green goddess, but the colours just weren't strong enough to satisfy me.



Someone with a bit of patience may have just spun the whole lot up and then overdyed it, but spinning takes a little time, and really you want to be spinning with colours you like, so I took my fibre and little ball back to the dye pot and got this:

This is the original pale green ball, overdyed with emerald, and turquoise, not a caterpillar!

Actually I overdyed the fibre and the ball twice, because it was too bile green second time round so I had to introduce some more blues, to achieve the desired effect.

Now as we at Freestylefibre are very aware you have to be very careful and patient and gentle when dyeing fibre, but unfortunately after 2 trys at overdying and cooling, the fibre hadn't faired aswell as the ball and hadn't bloomed back to its original fluffy self, so not to be defeated I put it through the drum carder, added a little sparkle with some blue angelina and spun it into this:



7oz of feltable fluffy green singles to play with!



Monday afternoon I dyed another 16oz of fibre and some more silk hankies, and this time I've actually achieved the kind of results I was hoping for, coming soon!

10 comments:

Marianne said...

It is simply lovely, Jo. I even liked the pale green...but know what you mean...wanting more depth.

Good job!

KimK said...

Wow! I actually gasped out loud when I scrolled down to see that rich, rich emerald and turquiose!

Strumpstickan said...

I liked that dark green overdye in between pictures:)

Have a nice midsumer!

Peri said...

Groovy green! Koolaid ratios - I always ignore them when I dye with the stuff. For a good bright green I mix the lime with the blue raspberry and use 3 sachets of each to 1 jam jar of water - whoa -I am so techinical. It works though.

Caroline said...

Wow greens to glow in the dark with!

Fiberjoy said...

The yarn looks well worth all your tenacity! I wonder if different batches of koolaid use different dyes? From what I've seen the results are so unpredictable.

Sheila said...

Great green! I never would have guess that pale green would turn into something that rich. Dying is fun.

Ang said...

Oh what lovely colours! Just beautiful.

Tusa said...

Very nice. The mint green was nice too. The final outcome though... Can’t wait to that yarn in a garment.

Morandia said...

OMG! How beautiful, Green is my favorite color but WOW!!!