Sherri Woodard Coffey

The dyeing has been going really well, even after a pretty big mistake resulting from my—ahem—math skills. I was going to dye the rust yarns at 1.5%, but somehow after adding in the weight of the weighing “container,” I added that amount to the amount of dye needed with a decimal misplaced. Now, logically, that should have been a red flag immediately, but, alas, it wasn’t. The result was that I added dye to the pot which would have resulted in rust skeins dyed at 2.35%—not exactly what I had in mind. So, I just added another skein to the mix, readjusted the dye amount, and went on my way.

I usually tag each skein with its weight in grams and the color formula used. Even after balling up the yarn, I either transfer that tag or write out a new one on a string tag, seen below. But, when that system fails, it’s nice to have a record of what you’ve done when you didn’t do the record-keeping like you usually do. (Talk about a convoluted sentence!) Since the rust didn’t turn out like I thought it would, I wondered if it was one of the colors that Polar Red had modified. A search on my blog turned up all the colors resulting from my experiments with this bright, bright color. Seen at the top is rust, polar red, and a 50/50 mix of those colors. Guess my latest rust turned out just fine after all! I’m taking a break from dyeing today to work on taxes, preparing the next batch of yarns for dyeing, and a couple of fun things. I think I’ll dye these “Matisse” colors shown here.

I can’t remember when I dyed last, and the fact is that I don’t have many colors that I use regularly. And, since I don’t like what I’m weaving, I am going to cut it off, retie, and use the new yarns that are getting dyed this week.

Today I went out and cleaned the yucky dyepots. But before it was possible to do that, there were other tasks. First, finding the water hose, buried under a bunch of weeds. As I tried to untangle it from the creeping plants, I discovered a leak. I thought I had turned off the water, but guess I didn’t. I hate that kind of waste! No wonder the weeds were so think there! Since that hose had a leak, I DID turn off the water, get out another hose, attached the sprayer and cleaned up. Then there’s the task of filling the pots with their many gallons of water. At least this water will be reused for the rest of the week, as I dye everyday. After adding the necessary water each day, the pH will be tested to see if any more acid is needed. Then the dyes and yarns will be added, the whole thing brought to temperature with a little stirring during the heating process. The colors scheduled for this week include yellow, purple, and rust.

This was in the travel section of the paper the other day and caught my eye, probably because of the colors, although it is graphically pleasing also. The few paragraphs accompanying the picture told of two exhibits in Austin, just a hop, skip, and a jump from Fort Worth—about four hours. When I looked and read about the door directly from the venue’s website, it was interesting indeed. The brown sections contain signatures of famous writers, actors, publishers, etc. from before the bookshop closed in 1925.

The other exhibit is Banned, Burned, Seized, and Censored. You can see a list of the banned books and recommended reading here.  But, even though I find the ideas of these exhibits interesting, I probably won’t make down there to view them. And I still like the door—a lot!

This week I have dyed black and more black, because, you know you can never have too much black. The first batch was black at 2%, the second at 3%, for a total of ten skeins, about five pounds. I labeled each group A through D, with the idea being able to keep the variations in color disguised by combining the various skeins. Ask me how I learned that this was necessary!

Looking at the reds overdyed with Polar Red, I first thought the color looked like other reds that I have dyed before Polar Red entered my life. However, when those skeins were placed amongst all the other dyed skeins, it was clear that the Polar Red skeins were different. Above are four skeins: on the left is Deep Red/Scarlet in 75/25 percentages. Its PR counterpart is next. Third from the left is 50/50 Deep Red/Scarlet and its PR counterpart. This picture does not do any of the yarns justice. I must have changed a setting on my camera, which I will investigate soon—maybe soon.

All of the week’s dyeing are in the wash at the moment. You know you’ve done a lot of dyeing when the washer is almost too full!

Polar Red “sample” on the ProChemical site

I decided that the Polar Red yarns had to go, after taking a good-sized sample for my notebook. Above is the color as shown on the ProChem website and below are the yarns with the Polar Red skeins. None of these graphics really illustrate the color well—at least on my monitor. In both pictures the Polar Red skein is on the far right—in case its bright self was unidentifiable!

Yesterday I overdyed the Polar Red skeins with Royal Blue and Violet. Below is a picture of the results.They’re really quite nice. I haven’t compared them yet to dyes that I use on a regular basis, like Magenta and other purples that I have dyed in the past. The skein on the left is the one overdyed with blue, right is overdyed with violet. Something else to consider: The original Polar Red yarns were dyed at 1.5%, as in the ProChem example. (I usually dye at 1%.) The blue and violet were added at 1%, which makes the whole shebang dyed at 2.5%. I use those percentages sometimes for a particular project, but not on a regular basis. Which means that I will need to dye yarns at the regular 1% but divide the colors equally to get a real feel for using Polar Red. Rumor has it that it is an excellent color to mix with other colors.

Tomorrow I am overdyeing some of the reds with Polar Red.

Polar Red, even though it doesn’t show up to its reality here, is potent stuff. Here is a picture of the Rust yarn, Polar Red yarn and then a 50/50 mix of the two colors. In the mix, you can tell what dominated the dyepot. I have not been able to capture the intense neon-like color of the Polar Red in any pictures. I did cut off a sample of the yarn to keep for my records because I can’t imagine actually weaving with this color. It will be over-dyed with another color. Below are the colors that I have dyed recently. What looks like black is actually a really rich chocolate brown. The bluish color is what is called Emerald Green. It is more green than the color shown here. All of the colors are gorgeous! Love this dyeing!

The plan is to dye some more reds, as I left out some in the series of reds that I dyed previously, then to move on to a bunch of greens to turquoise. Really looking forward to weaving again. Not looking forward to balling all of these yarns up. Of course, the upside of this is looking a the wonderful colors!

Reds, Polar Red

After having two little visitors for two weeks, I am trying to get back to a semblance of normal, whatever that is. While the boys were here, we did something every day. And, I’m embarrassed to say, we ate out nearly every night. By the end of a day spent at the zoo, Legoland, or the Museum of Science and History, the adult is this bunch did not feel like cooking! I’m missing those sweet little voices calling “Grandma….”

I’m dyeing reds in anticipation of a project still in my head. All of the colors above are dyed with Sabraset from ProChemical and are mixtures of three colors: Magenta, Scarlet, Deep Red. Since I had heard that Polar Red was a good color to mix with other colors, I bought a small jar to experiment with. You can see its bright neon self in the lower right of the picture. It will definitely need to be toned down for me to like it.

When I placed my last order with Pro Chem, I also ordered a rust brown. Usually every color I need can be mixed from the palette that I keep on hand, but I haven’t been thrilled with the browns, so decided to experiment with a premixed color. Today I am dyeing the rust yarns and a group that is a combination of rust and polar red. I may actually like this experiment judging from looking at the yarns in the pot so far.

Dye Swirls

Finally the colors and probable design have been chosen. Outside I go to fill the dyepots (I actually washed and cleaned them after the last session!), and discover that I had forgotten that the water wand that I use had broken in last dye session. I poke around and find the new one that I was sure I had bought. It wouldn’t fit on the hose and I couldn’t remove the fitting. So, I poke around some more for a new hose. Everything is set up, and I’m off! Dyeing browns, tans, and rust. The last dye session (s) will be a mountain of black because several designs that are percolating in my inspiration-free head have black. The browns use various combinations of navy, dull red (as opposed to scarlet), and mustard. The swirls shown at the top caught my attention, so much so that I went back inside to get the camera. Below is a picture after one good stirring. Showing these pictures brings me to confession time. I do not mix up liquid stock of my dyes. I did when I first started, and if I was doing lighter shades, would find it necessary again. Measuring dry dyes gives me good results which are duplicable, with the usual concerns as to dye lots.

Dye swirls 2

records, samples

Even though I don’t always do it, I’m a big advocate of record keeping. Sometimes I can be compulsive about keeping records and sometimes not. Often I will have a sheet like the above with the yarn samples hanging out in all their glory, but then forget to put it in the notebook. I’ll find it weeks (or months) later when I finally clean off my design desk. I should collect the dye sheets and put them with the sample sheet in a plastic page protector, but you know what happens with shoulds.

Speaking of dye sheets, here is one of the two sheets used for the above yarns.

Spreadsheet

Before dyeing, the skeins are weighed and labeled with the weight and dye formula to be used. After dyeing, rinsing, and drying, the skeins have to be balled up at some point. The balls of yarn are also labeled, either with the same label of the dyebath, or with a string tag purchased at Office Depot. There have been many times that those little tags have saved me. I find THE perfect color for a particular project, and thank goodness, it has a label with the dye formula! I am trying to get in the habit of weighing leftover balls with their new weight, but that’s a work in progress!

Pile of color

For the last couple of weeks before my trip to Charlotte, I spent a lot of time with the dyepots. I love looking at all the colors after a dye session. All of the colors above were created with Sabraset dyes from ProChem. The usual dye formula is to use a 1% ratio of dye to the weight of goods. In this case I was taking that 1% and dividing it among the two colors that I was mixing, in this case violet and scarlet.

As you can see, the colors on the bottom gradually change from more violet to more scarlet. the colors in the center are all scarlet, but the percentage of the dye to the weight of the wool changed. On the left is a 1% dyeing, then .0075, .005, etc. I obviously didn’t plan this picture well because the oranges are mixed in everywhere, but I did the same with them. The oranges are mixed with the scarlet and sun yellow. I am emphasizing the color names for the red and yellow because there is also a deep red and a mustard yellow, both of which are my favorites.

I will spend a few evenings watching mindless TV and winding the skeins into balls, carefully labeling each one with its formula. Having all this color in one place makes my day sunnier!