My First Time...

So, one of the Slytherins at Hogwarts is running a contest for a free bag pattern. The bag looks amazing. She wants us to post about firsts. I was not going to enter at first because I couldn't think of anything I have done recently that was a first and finished or near done. I started my first pair of socks a few months ago, but they aren't anywhere near done and won't be for quite sometime. However, looking over to my right, I saw a bunch of dye pots for the yarn I have been dying and thought, "Oh yeah! My first hand dye!" My dying is currently halted because I did a bang up job of tangling my yarn while hanking it...I keep telling my boyfriend that yarn hates me, but he says it just gets excited. "It's like a puppy, but instead of peeing all over the floor when it gets excited, it gets all tangled up." LOL I like this...it makes me feel better about being not so great with yarn handling.

Anyway, on to firsts!

So, I had received a skein of hand dyed yarn from my Ravelry friend, yohopaulie. I thought it was beautiful and had seen all of these people chatting about yarn dying and loving their work. I figured I should try. I read about 25 tutorials on the web on how to dye and what to dye with and bought a bunch of Kool-Aid colors (which are not as prevalent as I remember them being when I was a child). Then I went to Joanns and bought a cheapo wool yarn on sale. I also read about dying with Wilton cake colors, and since I had just finished up a class on cake decorating, I had some and decided to use those as well. I wasn't sure what color I was going to dye anything, I figured I'd just make it up as I went along.

So, with my tutorials open, I went to it. I decided I would try the cold pour method and hoped I wouldn't get it all over the floor. I have to laugh at this point because the actual dying process was not too bad. No big spills or anything, and I had found these cute little 8 oz. squeeze bottles perfect for squirting color onto yarn. It was when I stuck the thing in the oven to bake that I started having problems.

First off, I was super worried about having a big mess of yarn and melted plastic, so I kept checking it every 20 mins or so to make sure it was not melting. Once I finally got over that fear, I decided I could check on it once an hour. The tutorial I used was from knitty.com, and it said to leave the yarn in there for a couple hours because it needed to reach just under the boiling point, and then be left in for another 15 mins. Well, I checked and checked the temperature with my candy thermometer, but it never got higher than 200 degrees. And by that time it had already been in there for almost 5 hours! I had no idea what I was doing wrong. My boyfriend came home from work around 1 am and I was telling him all about my experience and he read over the tutorial. For whatever reason, he went over to the oven and said, "What temp. did it need to be at?" I told him 250 degrees, and he said, "Yeah...you have it at 225." hee hee Ooopsss...

So, 5 plastic squeeze bottles and 6 hours later, I had some hand dyed yarn. lol I laugh at this now because it's funny. Who knew 25 degrees would make that much of a difference?!

I also get slack for it from my boyfriend now when I go to dye yarn. I just started dying some for my spoilee and he said, "So, make sure you know the difference between 225 and 250 this time." lol It's all in good fun. :)

I made a pair of Fetching for someone else out of this wool. I plan to make a pair for myself someday too. I still have over half a skein left.

Here are some pics: