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Sunday, September 6, 2009

A Knit Full of Adventure

Some might remember the shawl I was knitting last month, for which I ran out of yarn. A couple of my friends from Sporum Forum (ravelry)helped me find a matching skein and sent it to me. Only, when it arrived, we discovered it was a lot lighter than the original yarn. That's when I got the sound advice of dyeing the whole shawl with tea. You can see the finished shawl here, with the ugly color difference:

So, I brewed up about eight cups of really strong tea and soaked the shawl in it. You can see how early on during the soak, the color difference is still discernible:

I let the shawl soak for several hours, though I was too impatient for an overnight soak. Then I took the shawl out, rinsed it twice and the then gave it a gentle wash. Some color did ran out initially but it was negligible by the time of final rinse.
Next came the blocking, the shawl is quite large. (I was too lazy to measure it).

...And finally some glamor shots. The post tea dyeing color came out to be a nice honey color. And no discernible color difference !!I love the shine the yarn has after blocking. Also it is so light and airy, I am tempted to wear it right now!



12 comments:

  1. Nice and very interesting what you did. Must keep in mind for the future! What kind of tea did you used?
    The shawl is beautiful, and the color very even.

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  2. Ioana...Thank you! I used the usual sort that we have for every day drinking.

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  3. Oh how perfect! Since you showed the predyed shawl, I can even look for the color difference and not find it. The color turned out so perfect, I would be wearing this everywhere!!!

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  4. I turned out fantastically! I felt so bad when the dye lot of the second skein turned out so far from your original skein, but it was meant to be. I mean, if it hadn't been that way, you wouldn't have learned about tea dyeing and wouldn't have the gorgeous shawl you have now! *HUG*

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  5. It's beautiful! I'll have to try tea dying yarn sometime.

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  6. What a great idea.

    A wonderful shawl.
    Ulla

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  7. Tea will always give a great antique look to work, it suits the shawl perfectly!

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  8. Wow, I love the color that it turned out to be! Now it's a treasure, and not a project that will irritate you!

    One of my friends bought "dark orange" yarn that came out an incredibly bright saffron. She plans to try that technique to calm that color down. I hope it works. She is making an HUGE shawl.

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  9. That's beautiful! I use tea and coffee a lot for dying when I quilt.

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  10. What a splendid idea, I love it and Orla likes it too. I wonder about using some of the fruit teas from Celestial Seasonings, with a red color... hmm.

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  11. As salaamu 'alaikum Sis,

    this is beautiful, MashaALLAH.

    Take care,
    wa salaam,
    Nakia

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