Oops and Oops again!

Yesterday I made an 'oops' when I described Apple Laine as 100% wool. It is actually, 50% superwash merino, 20 % silk, 20% kid mohair and 10% nylon. I mean, how much different could you possibly get from 100% wool!

This oops was a very good discovery for me. With 100% wool I use woolly nylon to reinforce the heels and toes. The stuff is finicky to work with on a good day, and an absolute pain in the touche the other 6 days of the week ;0)


Another oops - at the dye pot

Everything doesn't always go according to plan at the dye pot.

I use washfast acid dyes from Prochem in Boston. When doing a batch of skeins I:

• soak the yarn in hot water with a little synthrapol, until the hot water becomes tepid;
• measure and mix my dye powder with boiling water;
• make my dye bath in the pot with tepid water, the dye mix, and citric acid (to set the dye) and glauber salt (to level the dye).

A while back, I forgot the salt and I was in a hurry so the soak water hadn't cooled and the dye bath got too hot too fast. The result was a nice (to me) variegation in the yarn. I was so pleased I tried, successfully, to replicate my oops.


Here is an example of some lopi style yarn I did this week using the colour Chestnut.

I don't have a knit sample of the lopi style, but here is a simple toque knit in some worsted weight I dyed the same way another time.



What I like about this variegation is that it is more random than hand painted skeins - so something different.

Sometimes, repeating your mistakes can be a good thing! (Don't expect to hear Martha say this any time soon.)

But not every time - I tried the same oops-process with Chocolate Brown this week, instead of Chestnut and the result was more of a dog's breakfast - black, dirty brown and bright orange! Maybe something for Halloween. I had some sock yarn in that batch, so I'll whip up a sock and see if its worth keeping. If not I will relegate it to the pile of Mistakes to Be Dyed Black.

My Oops method works well, and replicates nicely with Chestnut, Brick, and Evergreen, so far:

soak yarn in hot water and a little synthrapol BUT remove while water is still hot

mix dye with boiling water and put in dye bath with a citric acid but NO salt

bring the dye bath to a rolling boil; do not stir the dye

plunge the skeins into the boiling dye bath; do not stir