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Hand-dyed yarn and Colour Challenges

September 23, 2015 By Karen Mitchell

I’ve been having a great time dyeing yarn lately, if you follow me on Instagram (please do) you’ll see some of the colours I’ve been working with.

Hand-dyed yarn

I’ve also decided to take the plunge and invest in Acid Dyes and signed up to a new subscription box by Knitcrate . The box arrives once a month for 6 months, with a set of acid dyes, three bare (ready to dye) yarns and access to online lessons on yarn dyeing and even a free knitting pattern. I think I’ll pass the knitting pattern on to my mother, along with one or two skeins of my dyed yarn, and choose a special crochet pattern instead.


 

In just a week or so it will be October and I’ve been preparing for the Nester’s 31 Day blogging challenge, this time hosted by Crystal Stine.  Last year I spent the month of October writing about Craft Storage  and this year I’m taking the plunge again and writing a new series about Colour. I’m calling it Crafted Colour – Practical Colour Theory for Craft Lovers and you can sign up here.

Over the Moon | Crafted Colour - Practical Colour Theory for Craft

Join me in October at Over the Moon for a new blog series, Crafted Colour – Practical Colour Theory for Craft

This is how I’ll structure the month – the first week will be all about the colour wheel and basic colour theory. How to put colour schemes together and some do’s and dont’s.

The second week I’ll delve into individual colours and which colours work best together.

Week three I’ll help you develop your “colour eye” and send you out looking for the colour schemes I talked about in week one. Take a photo and share your finds on Instagram with the hashtag #CraftedColour or on my Facebook page if you’d prefer.

Finally in week four we can go on a craft adventure together when I share some colour palettes and challenge you to create something awesome! Again you can share your project on my Facebook page or on Instagram with the #CraftedColour hashtag.

I really hope you join me for the exciting and colourful craft adventure. You can sign up and get the blog posts direct to your inbox here.

Time to go and write (gulp) 31 blog posts!!

Filed Under: 31 Days, Crafted Colour, Dyeing Yarn Tagged With: 31 Days, colour, hand-dyed yarn, yarn

My New Passion – Dyeing Yarn in the Crock Pot

August 22, 2015 By Karen Mitchell

I’ve been having a bit of fun this week dyeing yarn in my crock pot, or slow cooker as we call it here in Australia.crock pot, slow cooker, yarn dyeing, wilton's food dye, tutorial  My local big craft store had a sale on yarn and I picked up some balls of cream wool and Wilton’s food dye. About six months ago I tried dyeing yarn in my microwave and on the stove top and discovered it’s quite easy to felt the wool if you’re not careful. Dyeing your yarn in the crock pot is so much easier!

This is what you’ll need:

  • a hank of pure wool
  • vinegar
  • a slow cooker/crock pot
  • kettle to boil water
  • Wilton’s food dye
  • a few small glass jars
  • a pair of chopsticks (no joking)
  • a large bowl or dish (4 litre)
  • colander
  • good quality wool wash

Step 1  Grab your ball of wool and wind it into a hank, I found winding it around the backs of two chairs is the easiest way. Loosely tie the hank in four of five places so it doesn’t tangle.

Step 2  Take your bowl and fill it with luke warm water and add a 1/4 cup of vinegar and soak the yarn for at least half an hour.

Yarn in vinegar, dyeing yarn, food dye

Step 3  After half an hour (at least) slide the yarn and enough vinegar-y water into your crock pot to cover the yarn completely. Put the lid on and turn up to HIGH. Now it’s time to mix some dye.

Step 4  Open up your jar of Wilton’s gel dye, you’ll need about 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of dye in a glass jar mixed in with hot water. Stir well and set aside until you can see the steam rising from the crock pot.

Step 5  Now is the time to get a little artistic. You can pour the dye in or add it in little pools, leaving sections without dye. If you’re using more than one colour try to keep the areas of dye separate. Put the lid back on the crock pot and leave it for half and hour.

Slow cooker dyeing, crock pot dyeing, food dye, dyeing yarn

Step 6  After half an hour lift the lid and drizzle in some more vinegar. Dyes with red will set first in low acidity and by adding more vinegar the blues will set next. Put the lid back on and check again in an hour or so.

Exhausted dye, slow cooker dyeing, yarn dying, food dye

Step 7  Use the chopsticks to carefully check if all the dye exhausts (that’s when the dye sticks to the yarn and the water is clear). Here you can see the dye has exhausted into the yarn. You can turn the crock pot off now and allow to cool down. If you are a little impatient you can use the chopsticks to lift the yarn into a colander to drain and cool.

Don’t handle the yarn too much while it is hot as it will easily felt.

Step 8  When the yarn is cool add some wool wash and rinse well until the water runs completely clear.

Washing hand dyed yarn

Step 9 Gently squeeze the water from the yarn, again be gentle you don’t want to felt the yarn. Hang it out to dry, preferably in the shade.

And here’s some of the yarn I’ve dyed in the past week.

handdyed yarn, crockpot, slow cooker, wilton's food dye

If you have any questions leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them or try out some of your suggestions!

Filed Under: Dyeing Yarn, Tutorials Tagged With: colour, Crock pot, Dyeing, Food dye, Slow cooker, Wilton, yarn

Snuggles with the new Kitty Thea

July 5, 2015 By Karen Mitchell

I’ve finally finish both of my scrap yarn projects, snuggle blankets for our cats, Tigger and Thea. Here’s a photo of Thea I shared on Instagram a while back with her blanket.

via Instagram

I crochet a large granny square in acrylic 8ply/DK yarn in interlocking stripes and backed it with fleece fabric and finished it with a shell border. My favourite part of this blanket is the skip blade I bought for my rotary cutter. It cuts small slits in the edge of the fleece so I can attach the backing fabric to the granny square.

The next crochet project is a significantly larger one called Sophie’s Universe.

Filed Under: Crochet, Instagram Tagged With: crochet, crochet homeware, handmade, instagram

Epic Inspirations Blog Hop Reveal – Vikings

June 6, 2015 By Karen Mitchell

Hello and welcome to the Epic Inspirations Blog Hop Hosted by Melissa of Bead Recipes. Melissa has challenged several designers to create jewellery inspired by our favourite TV shows.

Having missed the Australian TV premier of Vikings due to horribly bad reception I had to wait for Netflix to arrive in Australia to start watching this great historical drama. Loosely based on the tales of the Viking warrior Ragnar, scourge of England and France.

Viking TV series

Ragnar Lothbrok (played by Australian actor and model Travis Frimmel) is a Viking farmer and warrior who joins raiding parties to pillage and plunder on behalf of his local lord. Bored with continually raiding east every year Ragnar secretly commissions his own longboat and sails west during the annual raids. Lothbrok returns with slaves, plunder and a promise of further rich pickings.

Seeing as I seem to have a rather large reel of 12gauge copper I thought I’d try making some cloak pins.

Viking style pin brooches

I have to apologise for the dreadful pictures, the middle of winter is not the best time to take photos. I’ll replace them with better ones when the sun puts in an appearance.

heart-pin-brooch.jpgHere’s just one of my favourites, I’ve worn it quite a few times with one of my crochet cowls. The loops at the top of the heart are adjusted for pinning thick material on one side and thinner on the other loop. For the pin top I attempted to create a rose. Might need a bit more practice to pull that style off.

 

jade-fork-pin.jpgI’m not sure if this type was every used by the Vikings, but this pin is a fairly simple fork style but this time I’ve wired a Lemon Jade bead to the top for a bit of colour and used a patina.

 

 

 

Swirl pin, circular brooch, copper pin with labradorite beads, Over the MoonI know when I design the right kind of pin for this one it will be my absolute favourite! 12gauge copper wire, heavily patina-ed and finished with Labradorite beads. I’m thinking a plain pin with either lots of stamped texture or perhaps wire the top of the pin with more labradorite beads.

Next I think I’ll try my hand at a pennanular brooch. 😉

Please visit the other participants to see which TV shows inspired their creations for this hop.

Melissa Trudinger http://beadrecipes.wordpress.com (Hostess)

Karen Mitchell http://www.overthemoon-design.com <= you’re here

Andrea Glick http://zenithjade.blogspot.com/

Karen Martinez http://fairiesmarket.blogspot.com/

Lennis Carrier hhttp://windbent.wordpress.com

Lindsay Starr http://phantasmcreation.blogspot.com/

Mona Arnott http://bijouxgemsjoy.blogspot.com

Lee Koopman http://stregajewellry.wordpress.com

Shaiha Williams http://ShaihasRamblings.com

Veralynne Malone http://veradesigns.blogspot.com

Elisabeth Auld http://www.beadsforbusygals.com

Kelly Schermerhorn http://meanderingwithkelly.blogspot.com

Dini Bruinsma http://angazabychanges.blogspot.com/

Jami Shipp http://celebratinglifewithdamamashipp.blogspot.com/

 

 

Filed Under: Jewellery Tagged With: beads, blog hop, Copper, Hops Swaps and Challenges

The Art of Awareness Blog Hop Reveal

May 16, 2015 By Karen Mitchell

Today is the reveal for the Art of Awareness Blog Hop hosted by Lori Anderson of Pretty Things and Heather Millican of Swoondimples. The idea behind this blog hop is to make handmade jewellery featuring the handcrafted polymer clay “word beans” from Swoondimples. Each designer has chosen their own words and colours to reflect their personal cause.

I decided to create a piece to support Hearth Health which is an issue for myself and much of my extended family due to a wonderful (*sarcasm intended) disease called Familial Hypercholesterolemia.

Bookmark, art of awareness blog hop, polymer clay, word bean, filofax,

I created a bookmark for my medical Filofax. I used brown leather and plum coloured felt beads which I embroidered with variegated thread. In future I must remember to embroider the felt beads before assembly, it’s really tricky doing this around the other beads, lol.

Filofax bookmark, art of awareness, mixed media, handmade, felt beads, polymer clay

And this is how it sits in my Filofax. I just open the rings and thread the jumpring on and close. When I get bored with my vintage Hamilton Filofax I can easily transfer all the papers and dividers along with my new bookmark into another planner.

What’s on the other side of my bead? I really didn’t know what word to choose to have on the other side of my bead! I wanted something about a long life and both creative and emotional fulfilment and when Leonard Nimoy (the original Mr Spock) pass away I knew exactly what to put on my bead. Live Long And Prosper.

I think it matches rather nicely with the vintage red roses I use for my dividers.

Art of awareness blog hop, bookmark, polymer clay, mixed media, felt beads, Filofax
I’ve rather enjoyed creating this mixed media piece and hope to play with more felt beads and polymer clay soon. Well, that wraps up this weeks blog hop. Please visit the other participants in The Art of Awareness Blog Hop.

 

Filed Under: Jewellery Tagged With: beads, blog hop, handmade, Hops Swaps and Challenges, mixed media

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Karen is a Australian based bead maker and jewellery artist who specializes in mixed media techniques. More…

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