CatsEye

52. Sheets of colour

Well, if by colour, you include brown. 



Some of my bed linen is still perfectly serviceable, but I am a little embarrassed to hang it out on the line.  So I thought I would go crazy and do some dyeing in the washing machine.

The first "colour" was Pebble Beige (in the centre).  I guess it's one of those shades that grows on you.  By itself, it looks pretty bland (it is beige, after all) and I was getting hints of green and mushroom, but up against the Dark Brown (excitingly named, eh?) it tones quite well.

I used the Dylon range from my local Woolworths, although comparing against the website, they don't have all of the 24 colours (I wonder what Woodland Brown and Terracotta Brown would look like?).  The process was really simple - just add the dye, cover with 500g of salt and throw in your fabric.

The dye is guaranteed not to last into the next wash too.  Although, after reading the instructions inside, this is why - you have to wash the fabric first, then dye it, then wash it again, and finally wash the washing machine.  That's more action in one day than my washing machine sees in most weeks. 

Of course, being a rebel I might have skipped a couple of those steps (the last two).  After I dyed the beige sheet, I skipped straight to washing the next one and it stayed white.  So I dyed that one brown and washed another white sheet afterwards.  No transfer at all. 

I can only hope that the dye doesn't come off onto me when I sleep on the sheets.  That would be amusing ...

Show and (not so much) tell

I feel bleugh today.  Continuing on from yesterday, when I laid down at 7pm for a little nap, and woke up two hours later.  Just in time to go back to bed practically.  Which, of course, when I got there meant I couldn't sleep.  Bleugh, I tell you.  So you're gonna get a mostly photo post today.

Sky:

Walking on the Wild Tide (reskeined):

Hand-dyed Opal (Blush, I'm thinking):

Bleugh ... it's a great word.  Doesn't feel so great though.

It's not easy being green

After Saturday's tidying and before the visitation, I had a bit of a dye. 

On the left: On the first go round, this was Moss, with a bit of Malachite.  On the second, a bit heavier with the Malachite and some Citron Yellow found it's way into the pot.

On the right: Malachite through and through.  I dip-dyed so there are some paler areas, and then I threw some stripes of Just Grey around for interest.

In the middle: a base of Malachite (like its sibling), evenly dyed this time, and then some Flame sprinkled and smushed about, which gave the cool green a much warmer feel.

Three definite greens, but all very different.  Lined up together like that, I'm drawn most to the yellow-green, but separate them and they all have their merits.

And because I just don't know when to stop sometimes, here is the grey skein, and the Stonewashed skein from last time.  Now with added Colour!

The Grey was a little boring, so it got some splodges of yellow, brown, burgundy blue and purple to zing it up a little. 

The Stonewashed?  Well, it got hit with the purple stick as well as the stones.  I think they might be done now ... but you never know.

Dyeing to know ...

what the last five base colours were? 

Left to right: Moss, Malachite, Turquoise (in detergent), Turquoise (in liquid soap), Marine Blue and Naval Blue.

I was warned about the Turquoise.  Something to do with bigger dye particles that can't get into the fibre as easily.  The good news is that the liquid soap washes out the detergent so I can still soak the starch out with the special cashmere wash, and then rewash if I feel in a turquoise mood.  (And the turquoise is darker than either skein in the photo, which is good).

The Malachite is vibrant and gorgeous, but it's a bleeder (!).  I didn't really like the green skein I ended up last time (too pale, too minty?) so I overdyed it with the malachite and grey and citron yellow.  I must have rinsed that puppy ten times (before and after the wash).  I guess it's not easy "being green".

I experimented with some Opal sock yarn I bought (I reckoned it's probably safer /cheaper not to use all the cashmere for playing!).  There's an orange/black skein, half and half, specially for October, and a grey/green/plum skein, one third each, where the plum turned out purple (even though I used the Burgundy ...).  I'll put pics in a special album.  As soon as I finish the second Hedgerow sock (Posh Yarns September) and I (hopefully) get to finish my Sock Wars victim's socks, I'm moving these two to the top of the pile.  I want to see how stripey each colourway will be.

Finally, was this the last day of summer?  Today's forecast was for heavy showers, and they didn't get it wrong.  It might be sunny during the week but getting cooler, and only 3 degrees C Wednesday night.  Might be a good time to think about finishing a certain throw ...

A Little Bit of Sky

A little bit of dye(ing)

Sock-weight cashmere, left to right: Lemon Citron, Sun Gold, Flame, Mahogany, Just Grey, (Brown), (Green), Coral Pink, Disco Pink, Mail Red, Burgundy, Tyrian Purple, (Blue).  Colours in brackets are my experiments, the others are 10 of the 15 base colours from Omega Dyes.