Auntie Ann Knits

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Good News: Lace Ribbon Scarf; Bad News: Sun Damaged Scarf

First, the good news!

I had a lot of fun knitting a Lace Ribbon Scarf.

Alas, I have become addicted to Addi Lace Turbos. So pointy! So fine! Well, it's better than a crack addiction, right?

The yarn is a beautiful, naturally-dyed superwash merino fingering weight sock yarn from Tactile: A Fiber Arts Studio. It's dyed with indigo, which means that it "crocked" (vocabulary word of the day) dye all over my hands as I knit. It's very interesting to have blue hands, and dark blue lines showing the precise path that I wind the yarn over my fingers to tension it. I should have taken a picture of my hands, but I was a bad blogger and didn't think of it.

Lace Ribbon Scarf 1

This is the scarf in progress on crack needles Addi Lace Turbos, size 3. Also, you can see some beautifully purpley stitch markers from JL Yarnworks, and one of my own row counter stitch markers.

Lace Ribbon 1

And here she is blocking. Pretty, yes? I love it, it's a lovely little decorative accent to spruce up my otherwise drab wardrobe.

And now the bad news.

Some of you with very long memories will remember that I started knitting a Falling Water Scarf a while back with some purple sock yarn that I just loved. I blogged about it here.

Scarf beginning
This is the "before" picture.

I finished the knitting, um, about 18 months ago? I'm not sure. And I stuck it in a bag to await blocking. At the time the household was rather unsettled, in the sense that we were doing a major remodel on our house. All three of us slept in the uninsulated, bare-studs living room for months, and for a couple of weeks we had to remove all of our belongings from the house and live at a motel. So -- I had a wee bit of trouble finding an area where I could block my scarf without insulation bits raining down on it or sawdust coating it. I should have borrowed a friend's spare room or something, but -- OK, I'll say it -- I got lazy. I stuck the scarf in a clear ziploc bag and let it sit on my desk in my home office, one of the relatively unscathed rooms during the remodel.

Falling Water Scarf 1
This is the "after" picture.

It was hard for me to photograph properly, but there is bad sun (or desklamp?) damage to this scarf now. It looks really crappy, to be blunt.

I am thinking of attempting to over-dye it with purple food coloring or Wilton's food color paste, both of which I have purchased. Again with the laziness and procrastination, right?

Any tips for me on dyeing? Help kick-start me into dyeing this, already!

4 Comments:

  • The Lace Ribbon Scarf is gorgeous & I love the colors. You should dye the other scarf as it will be a shame not to wear it. Good luck with the dyeing.

    By Blogger Ann, at Sunday, March 15, 2009 3:29:00 PM  

  • What a shame, the scarf is beautifully done. The only thing about dyeing that I can think of is this, if you have a scrap of yarn left, try to duplicate the damage, then try out the two methods you've chosen to see if the dye will take and hold. I was always told when colours bleed, you should wash in salt water to set the colour, having said that, I wonder if soaking the scarf in plain water would release some dye to colour the damaged parts. I'd call the mfg. and see what suggestions they have.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Monday, March 23, 2009 3:37:00 PM  

  • Go the reverse, wash, and set it out to hang in the sun. Neutilize the old dye and see what you get.
    Over dyeing might get you a muddy
    result.

    By Anonymous Nancy G K, at Saturday, March 28, 2009 7:45:00 AM  

  • If you can wait until after my move, I'll happily overdye it for you. Overdyeing is a bit random though, so I can't guarantee a particular color/shade. If you want to go the Wilton's route (I'd avoid the liquid food colorings) or Kool-Aid route, there's a great tutorial on Knitty. Be aware also that some of the Wilton's colors separate....like black becomes green and purple, which, while very interesting, may not be what you're going for. Email me if you want more info/help or if you want to mail it to me next month.

    By Blogger J, at Wednesday, May 20, 2009 2:21:00 PM  

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