Yarn Bits

New Colour Combo

Don and I are getting very close to having our new, revamped website ready for public viewing.  All the new photos are organized, along with the explanatory text, and have been delivered to our web mistress.  At the same time I have been trying to design a new colour combination for all our yarns for the Fall season.  I will also dye some Tencel warps in the new mix.  I'm on my second try and Linda will be here tomorrow to try this colour selection on some 3/5 Tencel skeins and I will dye some of our "silk 'n wool" in the same combo on Wednesday.  Hopefully this will be a successful mix.  We would like to present our new yarn and the new colour mix together with the updated site appearance at the end of this month. 

I have found an extensive site to visit  www.fibreandclay.co.uk   It is a fine craft gallery in Britain with a knitting  shop above it.  The artists represented at the gallery all have links to their websites.  I haven't explored all the sites yet, but those I have taken the time to look at are pretty amazing.  Have fun!!

Procion MX Dyes on Wool

I've been busy experimenting with my good old trusty MX Procion dyes on our new wool/silk/nylon yarn.  I've tried both handpainting skeins and immersion dyeing.  Interesting!!  These dyes work well as long as you use an acidic bath.  I procured some citric acid crystals from a chemical place in Toronto, "Nymoc Ltd.".  They are at 24 McGee Street,  416-465-1929.  Murray was quite helpful and willing to answer any questions I had.  I have dealt with them before.  They seem to have any chemical you might need for the dye process and more.  I tried immersion dyeing this afternoon as I want to try to use this yarn with a tencel warp.  I found that you need to gently stir the yarn while in the pot on the stove which I should have known but didn't do, so the yarn is not evenly dyed.  Since it is an experiment all the way around it won't matter in this case, but lesson learned.  The immersion method with the citric acid crystals in the dye bath worked beautifully.  The water was clear in a very few minutes with absolutely no wash out, so unlike MX usually.  Further experimenting with the handpainting is ahead.  Check in later.

On a completely different note, Don and I have been busy planning a complete overhaul and new look for our Yarns Plus website  www.yarnsplus.com   I always forget all the work involved in getting new photos and then making the appropriate copy for the pictures.  We hope that we can introduce it very soon.  I'll be sure to let you know when the big day arrives.

New Process

As mentioned in earlier posts, Don and I had a chance to purchase some absolutely gorgeous yarn.  It is 50% wool, 30% silk and 20% nylon.  It is twisted for knitting and does knit up beautifully, and I also intend to sample weave it as well.  It definitely would work as weft in a handwoven project, but I'm unsure about whether or not it would take the stress of the warp.  Of course, dyeing wool and still using the MX Procion dyes which I have plenty of, means somewhat of a different dye process.  This yarn demands a little extra care.  I first presoak the skeins in Synthrapol and warm water for 30 minutes.  The wool component demands an acid soak also, so that follows and then I can handpaint with reasonable success using the same dyes I have in stock.  Hurrah!!  I have tried handpainting with the colours for our "Seascape" and with those for our "Wine Country" and I'm happy with the results of both.  Next week I'll try a couple more colour mixes.  We hope to be able to lau nch this new product with our next newsletter at the end of the month.

Lost in Action

The Just for Us Originals Show   www.just-for-us.biz  was last Saturday at the Old Mill in Toronto.  Last week is a bit of a blur as all the last minute details had to be taken care of, as well as the set up for our Marie Josette booth  www.mariejosette.com  The show was great--wonderful food and friends, an impressive fashion show and so much wonderful art to view and buy--wearables, fine art, photography, amazing bronze sculptures, jewellery and pottery.  If you missed it this time around, watch for us next spring.

Today it w as back to the usual Yarns Plus  www.yarnsplus.com  work.  Don and I are now focussed on preparing for the "Knitters' Frolic", the annual event staged by the Downtown Knit Collective www.downtownknitcollective.ca  That means we need to have more handpainted 3/5 Tencel ready for the knitters, so I was mixing dyes today for Linda to begin dyeing the 3/5 for us.  Notice my glamorous dye studio.  What luxury!! The undyed just arrived last week, so it is going to be a bit hectic for awhile, but that's o.k.  Here's a sample of my dye sample book.  I picked it up at an art supply store some years ago now.  It has really heavy duty paper pages that I can hole punch and tie in samples of the various colours I work with.  It is a terrific reference for me.  Sometimes I mix the same colours and sometimes I just use a colour formula as a jumping off point to find the correct mix for a new hue.  I usually will include a sample of the woven material the colours were designed for.  It really is an invaluable resource.

Vat Dyeing

The last couple of days I have been finishing the dyeing processes for my woven shibori scarves.  The final process in some cases is vat dyeing.  The dye pot holds a combination of water, vat dye powder, lye and thiorea dioxide.  One must be extra cautious when working with this combo, so in addition to the usual mask for mixing dye powders and the usual rubber gloves, I also don protective eye goggles and heavy duty rubber gloves that are shoulder height.  The extra gear is to protect from any potential splash with the lye in the mix.  I have never had a problem, but have always worn the extra goggles and long, long gloves.  This dye mixture will discharge the colour it hits and drop in the new colour which kind of cool.  If you simply want to discharge leave out the dye powder.  The vat dyes themselves will not discharge.  This fact came in handy as a couple of the scarves I did not like the combos of colour and simply put into a discharge bath and all but the vat dye discharged.  I was much happier with the final result.

Shibori

Just a quick note.  I have found some fabulous videos on YouTube showing traditional Japanese shibori techniques, some in English and others in Japanese, but even without English the photos are clear and pretty much self-explanatory--beautiful fabrics.  In one of the videos, elderly women (85. 97 and 92 years of age) were shown merrily wrapping intricate shibori patterns.  Absolutely amazing!!  Just go to http://www.youtube.com  and type in "shibori" in the search engine on that page and all sorts of videos will be at your fingertips.  Have fun!!!

Discharged

                     

Several times customers have asked Yarns Plus whether or not our black tencel would discharge.  A while back we gave some samples of black tencel to one of our customers to give it a try.  Yesterday's mail brought lovely samples of her experiments with discharging the tencel with beautiful results.  The black discharged to a lovely golden beige, similar to our 'straw', but a little more on the yellow side.  Ellen Good of Ompah, ON used thiourea dioxide and Pro dye activator when experimenting.  I love the results and believe that one could design a stunning fabric using the woven shibori technique and the black tencel discharged when gathered up tightly. A great surface design book that devotes a detailed chapter to discharge dyeing is "The Surface Designer's Handbook" by Holly Brackman. It is published by Interweave Press  www.interweave.com   

More Shibori

I'm still floating around shibori heaven. Have a look at www.shiborigirl.wordpress.com for truly inspirational shibori photos.  Now I want to try more shibori (I have played a little with some small scarves) and I believe if you were to use polyester fabrics you could get a permanently pleated piece.  Something to try later when my deadlines have all been met.  Actually, I do have a warp ready to weave more woven shibori and should be able to get to it soon.

Some fabulous photos for colour inspiration can be found at www.flickr.com/photos

Shibori Heaven

Just a quick note to guide you to an amazing blog site.  It is the blog of Karren Brito who has published a book about shibori and hosts a blog with amazing photos of shibori pieces.  She also has many information posts re dyeing processes.  There are gateways to many more blogs about shibori, other dye techniques, knitting and weaving.  Karren's blog site is www.entwinements.com  I only just touched upon a couple of other sites from Karren's  www.shibori.com  and  www.talkingaboutweaving.blogspot.com

Have fun and be inspired.