I’ll get the photos up soon …

This is a project to experiment with hand-dyeing using food colouring, as well as to make a hat for Caroline for the winter. Eventually, I want to do a Nancy Roberts style version of the Jo Jo sweater, but I needed some information first.

EZ’s pattern calls for 7-11” of prime rib stitch, followed by 4 rows of K1P1 rib, then decreasing to fewer stitches that are picked up on a needle and pulled tight.

For the machine, I will use Fisherman’s Rib on main bed with ribber (SK580 + SRP50), then K1P1 rib, then double up rib stitches onto the main bed for the first decrease, then move to EON decreases for the final decrease, with tightened tension and pick up on a needle.

So far, I’ve done the dyeing in small batches (6-14g each) at 5% and 10%. The colour wheel is in the photo. The food colouring comes from the grocery store, brand Club House, in colours red, blue and yellow. I use distilled water for all my dyeing. The skeins are dyed at a 10% DOS, while the balls are mostly at 5%, except for the yellow, which I initially dyed at 1%, but quickly decided that I would want darker colours.

You can see that there is some streaking in the 10% skeins. My recipe was: 500 ml water, 2 ml of 56% acetic acid (concentrated vinegar), and about half a tsp of glauber’s salt, microwaved for 10-12 minutes, depending on whether I was doing one jar or 3 at a time.

**** Back to knitting plans ****

I’m going to start with a small, stuffy-sized hat in the paler colours (which I don’t really like anyway), to get gauge.