Saturday was our rain date for the dyeing workshop my mom planned last weekend. It was rainy this weekend too, but not quite as rainy and cold as last weekend.
Only six of us showed up, but since we had to do it all indoors, that was probably good. We used
ProChem One Shot dyes and
KnitPicks worsted and fingering weight dyeable yarn.
I was favourably impressed with the yarn quality, actually. The fingering weight is very soft and the yardage is a great value - over 400 yards in a skein, enough for a pair of socks. The worsted was also nice and soft and took the dye well. It was about 220 yards/skein, so I toyed with the idea of dyeing three skeins for a clapotis, but am not sure if I'm ready to tackle that yet.
We used a microwave and plastic casserole dishes and experimented with a variety of techniques. Some of the yarns were painted (using hair dye bottles) flat on plastic; we rewound some skeins into longer (2 metre) skeins and painted those; my mom tried winding some into a 42" skein and painting the skein on the niddy-noddy; my sister and I tried coiling a skein into a circle and painting it in pie wedges; and of course we tried the ball winder method (the bottom of the ball one colour, the top of the ball another colour). I went up today to take pictures and we tried a somewhat different technique with a ball-wound skein - we painted that skein in wedges, like a pie, instead of top and bottom.
Pictures! I took one of the skeins so I could see that the different techniques looked like in the skein, then tried to take pictures of each skein so that I could see what the techniques looked like "flat," as it were.

1 & 2 - ball wound and dyed. 1 was dyed with cherry red on the bottom and maize yellow on the top. 2 was dyed with mountain aqua, kiwi green, and then we squirted bright orange into the middle of the skein and cooked it some more.
3 & 4 - painted skeins. 3 was the skein Mom painted on the niddy-noddy. We think she got pastel-like colours because the yarn was under tension when she painted it. 4 was a 2 meter skein that we attempted to paint like a Koigu skein.
5 - the skein we coiled into a circle and painted in pie wedges. We did three different shades of green and filled in with some indigo and some bright orange.
6 - the "test" skein we had on the table! Every time we mixed a colour, we tried it on this skein. At the end of the day, we looked at it and thought it was pretty cute, so we added a little more dye and cooked it too. ;-)
Individual pictures of the skeins can be found here:
1 and 2 |
3 and 4 |
5 and 6Individual skeins:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6This was so much fun. They are planning to dye some more on Weds. I might take the day off! I ordered some more dye yesterday when I got home too. We needed/used a lot more yellow than we thought we would, and we've discovered that colours like burgundy and teal and purple aren't all that easy to mix.
There's a lovely maple leaf scarf at
Earthfaire so tonight we tried to dye an autumn-colours skein for the pattern, which I ordered yesterday as well. I also think a lot of the projects in Lavish Laces could use this yarn, at least the fingering weight yarn.
Oh - I also took some pics of the unblocked (!) but still completed alpaca stole from Lavish Laces (it's the background knit in the yarn pictures above, but you can't see much of it). My daughter was a very willing model. I went ahead and started working on the Falling Leaves project in my grey handspun from Lavish Laces too. Go me!


Labels: dyeing
posted by A M |
9:06 PM |
(42) comments
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
H. got the flu last week. I guess it was the flu. High fever, sore throat... it's settled in her chest now and she is still convalescing. She did go to her concert on Monday (for which we sewed a "poodle" skirt that had a kitty on it instead) but I still don't think she's even back to 85%. I got it over the weekend but took Oscillococcinum sooner than I'd given it to H., poor little thing, so I am going back to work tomorrow; I think she's staying home another day though.
I did get my Lavish Laces alpaca stole finished, though, and I've started another one, the Falling Leaves, with some of my handspun. I'm not sure about the handspun, though - I think in my attempt to make sure that it was well plied, I overplied it. *sigh* The only thing I can think is to unply it a little bit, which seems like a tremendous task.
I'll try to get a picture of the alpaca stole. I washed it but haven't blocked it. I've never really blocked anything larger than a sweater! Guess I'll have to take it to my mom, but that would obviate giving it to her later as a present...
posted by A M |
11:37 PM |
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Sunday, March 27, 2005
homemade tiramisu!
I had to make tiramisu for about 15 people, so a measly 4 servings wouldn't work. After looking up several sources and digging in my own recipe books, I came up with a recipe that is mostly a combination of Buca di Beppo's recipe and a recipe found on (don't laugh) cookingforengineers.com.
MAKES: 12
INGREDIENTS:
12 oz espresso or double-strong coffee
1/2 cup sugar
4 lrg egg yolks
1 egg
1/2 cup Marsala
16 oz mascarpone cheese (2 containers)
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
40 ladyfingers (Trader Joe's work really well)
DIRECTIONS:
Stir 2 tbsp sugar into espresso and chill.
Easy zabaglione: Whisk egg yolks and egg until light and creamy. Pour in remaining sugar and whisk until well blended. Add Marsala. Microwave on high for 30 seconds, then whisk. Repeat 4-6 times, until thick and creamy.
Whip cream until soft peaks form. Beat in vanilla extract.
Beat mascarpone cheese until smooth and creamy. Pour zabaglione onto cheese and beat until smooth. Fold in whipped cream.
Dip ladyfingers in espresso mixture (one at a time) and place in pan. I used a 13x9 pan for this recipe. Spread half the cream mixture over ladyfingers. Cover with another layer of soaked ladyfingers. Spread with remaining cream mixture. Chill for at least four hours.
Note: when dipping ladyfingers, use a shallow bowl with some of the coffee mixture in it and place immediately in pan. They soak up the coffee quickly and start to crumble if you try to do four or five at a time.
Note 2: you can add liqueur to the coffee mixture. Suggestions: a shot of amaretto; a shot of Kahlua; a shot of chocolate cream liqueur... I'll confess I have even used Scotch when I didn't have anything else handy.Before serving, sprinkle with cocoa powder. If you can find the amaretto-flavoured chocolate bars from Italy, they are even better to grate over the top.
Labels: recipes
posted by A M |
9:13 PM |
(0) comments