Adventures in fucking shit up

So, this weekend I attempted my first self-striping sock yarn dye-job. The concept is easy enough: measure how long a section of yarn you need to do 1 round, multiply by number of rounds and then by number of colors, and then reskein at that length, place markers for where you change colors.

You normally see people do this with 2 chairs placed very far apart. I don't have two chairs, let alone enough room in my apartment to stretch it out, so mine was a little more difficult to do that. Instead, I measured out the length on the floor in a slightly labyrinthine configuration and very carefully reskeined the yarn this way. This means my lengths aren't exact for each color change, but eh, close enough for government work.

The dyeing was fairly easy. After I sectioned the yarn off into 3 lengths - my 3 colors were going to be orange, purple, and white, I decided, I soaked the yarn (except for the white section - no need to dye it, whee), and dumped the orange and purple sections into tupperware containers with their respective dye colors. The orange came out fine - but with purple wilton cake dye, you tend to get splotchiness. Splotches of purple, blue, and fuschia. Overall, the effect is purple, but it's definitely got a 'hand-dyed' look to it.

Then you hang it up to dry, and take out your handydandy ballwinder and wind it up.

Not. Not with a 45-foot long skein. After some cursing and bitching, I hooked the yarn in a big circle around one couch, over the back of another, and the TV in the living room. It's probably a good thing my roommate was not present for this, because he'd probably think I'm nuts. Oh, and I have a picture. Then spend 30 minutes winding this into a ball. With a dog getting in your way the whole time. Then try winding the ball onto the ballwinder to make it all nice and neat, only to have something go TERRIBLY WRONG and you end up with a big wad of knots.

And then get frustrated enough to just start cutting the damn yarn apart and tying it back together and fuck it, when I get to these parts, I'll just untie it and weave in the damn ends.

There has got to be a better system for this than mine.


Oh, but the dye job worked. I cast it on and did a few rounds, and it's striping up well- I was aiming for 5 rounds of each color on size 3 needles, and that's what I have, give or take. The yarn is, however going to need another wash before these socks get worn. Part of this is because whenever you dye something with blue, it takes forever to wash out. Another problem is - red dye. Red dye, I hate it. Red dye stays in everything, and it will then turn your hands pink. I had the same problem years ago when I would make things with sculpey clay - use red, your hands turn pink. Because of this, the white stripes look a bit dingy - from the blue I couldn't wash out entirely and the red that is currently staining my hands from working on the sock. Hopefully, a was will fix this.


In addition to that, I attempted a re-dye on 2 skeins I did not like. The first being the pastel pinks, greens, blues, and purple skein which, well, was just so not my thing. I need vibrant and bright, not pastel. I smacked it into a bowl with some yellow, and now it's turned a suitably more hideously color for me. Like a cat vomited on the pastels, oooh (no, I'm not being sarcastic, I like it better this way). The second was my attempt at camouflage socks - where I discovered that black wilton cake dye turnes bright fucking pink, leaving me with pink, brown, and green yarn. Well, I stuck it in a blue-green dye bath, but it had little effect. More or less, it toned down the pink. It's better than it was before, but I don't know if I'll ever make socks with this yarn that I'll like.

On the knitting front? Not much. I have socks on all my sock needles again. Some small work has been done on Banff - still working the shaped sleeve ribbing on the first sleeve, into the stockinette on the front. The irish hiking scarf has yet again been abandoned to the pile, along with the sock memories shawl which hasn't seen work in probably 2 weeks at least.

Part of this is due to my left arm always being sore (any doubts about carpal tunnel? Not any more). It's not fun to knit when it hurts to do so. Another good reason is City of Villains. Which is SO MUCH BETTER than City of Heroes, but I may be biased, being all evil and villainous myself. I am finding it much easier to solo, much easier to complete missions and level, and much more fun, because I don't die nearly as much - I suspicion that the classes are much more balanced (or, at least, brutes are). Not only that, but one of my friends started a brutes-only supergroup called Brute Force, which I am very much enjoying gaining prestige for as my pirate-tastic char The Bloody Roger, so we can build ourselves a kick-ass base. I think I'm going to demand we have at least one tiki-lounge themed room.