Today's Episode: Although things have cooled between the girl and her yarn, there is sill hope for the future. After a period of cleansing, the yarn begins to reveal its True Colors. To the girl's surprise, she doesn't find the red, hot romance she expected, but instead a warm, rose-colored companionship. It looks like this could be a relationship that can really last.
After squeezing out as much water as I could in the tub, I transferred the yarn over to the sink for a rinse. I arranged the spout so that the water ran down the side of the sink, and I smooshed the yarn into the puddle in the corner. I did a couple of passes for each skein, until the water ran clear.
As you can see, most of the red washed out with the water.
.
When I was researching dyeing with beets, I discovered that they're not especially prized for dyeing fabrics. According to Lion Brand's article (the only good one I found), the color completely washed out of cotton, and dyed wool a very warm tone. Regardless of the fact that the red doesn't really stay, I really liked the resulting color when I dyed a test swatch a few months ago. Besides, I really like beets, and I fell in love with the idea of dyeing with them!
I wrung out as much water as I could, and then I re-skeined all of the yarn. It didn't look like it had felted at all, but re-skeining is an assurance that there's no problem (and also it's easier to "fix" felting problems when the yarn is wet). I then let it dry.
I think the end result is beautiful. I love the little twinges of pink, but I'm OK if they don't stick around.
I had a lot of fun doing this, and making up these silly posts! Thanks for playing along! I'd like to try natural dyeing again... I've been saving onion skins, and that might be what I'll do next. Wouldn't it be fun to get this Green Mountain Green yarn at Rhinebeck every year, and have cozy sweaters in a (natural) rainbow of colors?
The color is very pretty. I enjoyed reading this story. I love happy endings.
Posted by: Oiyi | February 16, 2008 at 12:29 AM
The color is so pretty! How could you be disappointed with that lovely shade?
Posted by: kseio | February 16, 2008 at 01:45 AM
What a spectacular end to the love story! I've really enjoyed following along and love the resulting color. Such a warm, subtly complex set of pale golds...it quite inspires me to think about dyeing with natural materials too. :)
Posted by: Marie | February 16, 2008 at 03:47 AM
It's lovely! Will the color last through washings down the road?
Posted by: Anne | February 16, 2008 at 07:29 AM
Yippee -- it really did come out beautifully. A happy ending, with a surprise twist!
Posted by: Dave | February 16, 2008 at 07:31 AM
The rinsing technique is strangely familiar. ;) Your results look fantastic! And it looks like the yarn bloomed nicely with the dye process. Can't wait to see what you make with it!
Posted by: Jessica | February 16, 2008 at 08:37 AM
How gorgeous! I remember listening to an episode of Cast-on when Brenda talks about how hard it is to get a shade of red in natural dyes. Isn't that why they use bugs?
Posted by: Liz K. | February 16, 2008 at 08:54 AM
I think it looks great! And, sure that beet red would be marvelous, but red is one of the hardest natural dyes to find, and I think that warm, peachy color just fabulous. And I've enjoyed the story!
Posted by: --Deb | February 16, 2008 at 09:57 AM
Very nice!
Posted by: carla | February 16, 2008 at 10:45 AM
What a lovely surprise! The yarn turned ot perfect - and you are in love, what else matters?! Nice job and thank you for taking us along on your journey! Now, on to the sweater!!
Posted by: Stacey | February 16, 2008 at 11:01 AM
Awesome!
Posted by: Jacquie | February 16, 2008 at 03:12 PM
I love the color, it looks like a warm buttery yellow to me (but that could be just my screen?) still very nice though. Can't wait to see you knit it in to something:-)
Posted by: Denise | February 16, 2008 at 03:26 PM
Wow! It is pretty but I didn't expect it to be that color.
Posted by: margene | February 16, 2008 at 04:43 PM
What a beautiful color. Totally fascinating that it's not remotely red. This was a very fun series of posts. Thanks for sharing! And now I think I'm craving beets.
Posted by: Jean | February 16, 2008 at 05:19 PM
Holy heck! Catching up with your posts and see that you have been busy! Cool posts!
Posted by: tiennie | February 17, 2008 at 03:15 AM
What a cool and unexpected result! Really neat-o. Dying with natural "stuff" is fascinating. You should check out the most recent Yarnival (I forget who hosted, but there's a link in Uberstrickenfrau's last post). Amazing, funny and kinda ooky blog post about dying with black walnuts.
Posted by: Kim | February 17, 2008 at 10:00 AM
What a great series of posts! I love the way the yarn turned out, too...not what I was expecting, but really pretty!
Posted by: whitney | February 17, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Very nice colour -- and a great dyeing saga!
Posted by: Ingrid | February 17, 2008 at 02:31 PM
these posts have been very entertaining!!! you make me want to try my hand at natural dye-work.
Posted by: Heather | February 17, 2008 at 02:57 PM
these posts have been very entertaining!!! you make me want to try my hand at natural dye-work.
Posted by: Heather | February 17, 2008 at 02:57 PM
Cute trilogy blog posting. :) Like another poster said, I didn't expect it to be that color. I like the whole 'naturalness' (if that is a word) of it all.
Posted by: Sacha | February 17, 2008 at 09:43 PM
Ooh, this isn't what I expected at all, but it's lovely. I think that would be a great Rhinebeck tradition to start! Turmeric would probably turn out beautifully, though the potential for mess is high to say the least.
Posted by: Stella | February 18, 2008 at 01:25 AM
Great story. As Kseio said, you can't beet that. In fact it was a tale to dye for!
Posted by: David | February 18, 2008 at 12:52 PM
The end color is great - even though not beety. Thanks for posting your adventures!
Posted by: ann | February 18, 2008 at 02:04 PM
Gorgeous result!!
Posted by: Nora | February 18, 2008 at 03:51 PM
I read the whole trilogy in one sitting. It made for entertaining reading & I was shocked at the complete lack of red in the end color. Who'd have thought? Very funny kool-aid episode. It's like regaling a vegetarian with a tale about the juicy steaks you're going to cook up with her hard grown organic veggies.
Posted by: Mary Beth | February 18, 2008 at 05:44 PM
interesting -with the way they stain hands, counters and everything else, I'm surprised they don't stick to yarn more! the color is really neat though - subtle.
Posted by: stacey | February 19, 2008 at 08:13 AM
Oh, I go away for a little while and all sorts of fun happens here. I was thinking that there would be some red yarn at the end; but, wow, I am blown away by the results. I really like this color, even with the twinges of pink!
Posted by: nova | February 19, 2008 at 11:18 AM
Quite a steamy story! And although I would not have guessed the yarn was dyed with beets, it is very pretty.
Posted by: Brenda | February 20, 2008 at 08:40 PM
I see a lovely soft golden color... very pretty! So I declare the experiment a success. :-) Though I am very curious to see what would happen with the onion skins...
Posted by: Beth S. | February 21, 2008 at 02:46 PM
who would'a thought?! ... what pretty results!
Posted by: gray la gran | March 03, 2008 at 08:16 PM
The same thing happened to me when I dyed with beets and coffee! I wanted a deep red color that was muted by the brown of the coffee and only came up with a darker version of what you got. Although it is a gorgeous color, it was a little disappointing.
I over-dyed it with Kool-Aid (grape, lemon-lime, and red) and got really muted, earthy colors rather than the day-glo extravaganza that you usually get with Kool-Aid.
Your turned out great, even if it wasn't the color you were going for!
Posted by: Chrissy | May 16, 2008 at 08:41 AM