So, who’s ready for 2020 to go away? I sure am (although I’m not expecting things to be much different in the first half of 2021… thank goodness for crafting!)

On my last post, I wrote about dyeing a cardigan after knitting it. This time I decided to do the same with a triangular shawl.
It’s a simple pattern, one I use mostly when I feel like doing some very mindless knitting and still end up with something useful to wear.

For the past few months, I’ve been craving the colour green. For those who know me and my 95% black-and-gray wardrobe, this is definitely a weird and unusual occurrence, which I’m blaming on Pandemic Brain. I don’t own a single piece of green clothing, so this shawl seemed like a good way to remedy that.

The wool I had bought for this a project so many months (years?) ago was, no surprise there, gray. The lighter areas are almost white and I felt this would make the colour absorption more interesting.

I chose a mixture of two dyes, one green and the other one more teal blue. I find the two colours together gave me the right amount of hue depth.
Pro tip: sometimes dyes look “flat” on the fibre if used alone; for added depth, add around 25% of a lighter hue (so your dye stock is 75/25) and you should see it “pop” a bit more.

I know the photo shows it as more blue than green, but that’s just my camera.

This dye bath wasn’t very acidic, to allow the fibre more time to absorb the pigment. I also added the dye to the pan before the shawl, and made sure to start with cool water that I then heated slowly (this wool wasn’t superwash treated, so I had to be extra careful).

Once the water was warm enough and the dye had enough time to penetrate the fibre, I added more citric acid and let the whole thing simmer for 15 more minutes, until the water was clear.

As usual, I let the water cool down completely before removing the shawl. Can you see how the darker base colour of the fibre allowed for variegation of the project? I really like that.

And here is the somewhat finished shawl (I haven’t woven in the ends yet). Do we like?

Allow me to finish this year’s last blog post with a little furry homage. Here is Squish, my first ever pet, who lived to be 19. He passed away this March after leading a very full and spoiled life, and I’m very happy I had him in my life! Wasn’t he the most handsome boy?

Happy holidays, whatever/if you celebrate, and let’s all hope 2021 is less weird! Wishing you all creativity, love, and joy. See you next year 🙂