Saturday, October 17, 2009

Socks in the Blue Mountains


Yesterday a few girls from my Guild Knitting Group (including me) took a trip up the freeway to the Blue Mountains to participate in their Sock Workshop.

It was a really enjoyable day, and even those who were already proficient sock knitters learnt something (a really nice way to cast on and start top down socks).

Lynne had done a lot of work to set up the instructions for every possible method of knitting socks that you can imagine (including on two straight needles), which must have required a mammoth amount of work. And I enjoyed her teaching.

I would have said over 50% of the class had not knit a sock before - some were very new to knitting. So everyone did a great job to produce something, even if we didn't get it all finished.

Some photos...
(we were knitting a baby sock in 8ply, by which ever method took your fancy - dpns, magic loop, 2 circulars or if you were brave 2 straight needles) This is the wool/acrylic blend that Mel was knitting into a little sock for me. And Kate knitting some Opal.
Gemma powering through her sock.

Helen working on her sock. Some of the ladies on the day working steadily away.


Lynne, our teacher with Kate paying attention.


The beginning of my sock in the dyed 100% wool.

A little experiment

I did an experiment the other day and I wanted to share the outcome.

I took 3 skeins of pure wool (crepe) and one skein of wool/nylon/acrylic blend and dyed them
I used three types of dye in similar colours
1. food colouring - pillarbox red
2. Kool Aid - cherry
3. Gaywool dye - crab apple

I put all yarn through a mordant prior to dyeing.
I dyed all three the same way in a modified 'painting yarn' type of way... ok I tipped the dye on and covered the yarn.
I steamed each skein to set the dye.

Here are the results
From left to right
1. Wool + food colouring (quite a patchy pale result)
2. Wool + KoolAid (nice result, slight variegation, good coverage)
3. Wool + Gaywool (good saturation, excellent coverage, deep colour)
4. Wool/acrylic/nylon mix (nice texture to the colour where the slight white of the nylon/acrylic which doesn't take the day, shows through. A soft colour but still good saturation and excellent coverage.)