I'm Dyeing to Knit

I had a very slow day at work a few weeks ago and this is what I found. How to dye.

A while back I had bought a 5.5 lb cone of cotton yarn that I intended for my Ikea Tube Chair Slip-Cover. Well the 5.5 lb cone of yarn turned out to be a sport weight, not exactly something to knit a slip-cover with. I'm eventualy going to buy Peaches & Creme double worsted weight but need 7 lb to finish (didn't take into consideration that cotton is heaver then wool when buying only 5.5 lb) Since I'm chaning to cotton it will be less exspensive than wool but the very idea of buying 7 lbs to knit right now is crazy. I need to destash and bit and finish school before I start on this indever.

So the question arouse, what to do with the 5.5 lb cone of cotton that I have? I got it in a cream color, originaly with the idea that I could dye it to whatever color I wanted the chair cover to be. So I thought why not go ahead and still dye it. I had always wanted to try the kool-aid dyeing. I did a little research and found that kool-aid will not dye cotton (a very sad day). But did find that tye-dye will work. My little cousin originaly gave me the idea at once of our family parties but I didn't remember the conversation untill I had done my research.

Now that I was for sure going to use tye-dye the question was what for? Since I had just made my first sock (even if it was on size 6 needles) I wanted to make another. Plus then I could use the self striping tutorial I found. Plus this yarn was the perfect weight for my first real socks. (I got the 5.5 lb cone on ebay from Frank's, and he has alot more bulk cotton in off white colors if you would like to give it a try). From the book I got at the library I determined that most socks used 400 yds so I wound off 6 400 yd hanks. The first hank was around two chairs 20' apart, the next 10' apart then three 5' apart that the last one with the chairs right next to each other (about 3' apart). From my calculations the 20' would make about 6 row strips with 3 diffrent colors.

I did not think to take picks of the whole dying procces but I basicaly followed the tutorials I found online. What I did discover is

1) Do not use the gloves they give you in the tye-dying kit. I got a hole in mine and half my hand was completly blue. Thankfuly durrng my reasrech I found a comment to use baking soda to get dye off your hands, and it worked but I still had to wash them about 5 times.

2) definatly do it on wet yarn, the only way to get a even color is to 'kneed' the dye in, or else you will by using way to much dye. I had the kind with a squirt bottle instead of puting it in bowles, that might work out diffrent. But then all that kneeding is probably what put the hole in my glove.

3) one kit with 3 dyes is enough for 3 1/2 400 yd hanks. The 20' and 10' hanks i did as the self striping and a 5' hank I did all crazy like, to use up most of the dye and only had blue left (by far the strongest dye in the kit I got)

4) if you let the dye set for 3 days all wraped up it will STINK when you take it out. After rinsing out the exsess dye, wash it with soap. Twice if need be.

I have now finished my first real sock (with a proper guesset) however I thougth this was fingerling yarn, and it most definatly is not. I used 60 stiches for this sock, and I really need to use at least 12 less stiches. So I have now declared it sport weight yarn and have cast on 48 stiches for the next sock. Also, now that I'm doing all this winding of hanks into balls and do not yet have a ball winder I found this really great tutorial on how to hand wind center pull balls.