51 things learned while dying yarn . . .

Things Auntie learned through her first yarn dying experience (many thanks to those who have gone before):

(More pics of the whole process at flickr) 

1. If it takes you five minutes to drill each hole for a 1/2 inch dowel, and your drill keeps overheating, you may be doing something wrong
2. Drills do not like to go in reverse for long periods of time.  See #1. 
3. Drills have multiple settings to know and love.   
4. Not all drill bits are created equal.  Size matters. Strength and speed matters more. 
5. A little wood glue is a good thing. 
6. A lot of wood glue is NOT a good ting. 
7. Two trips for wood dowels means you are frugal.
8. Three trips for wood dowels means you don't know how to measure. 
9. 8 inches may be a bit excessive . . . . but you won't know this until you try the damn thing out
10. A kidney for a yarn swift is not a bad trade. 
11. Upside down milk crates, chairs, broom handles, ironing boards, and ones own feet do not make good swifts. 
12. She who passed up a clearance swift a few months back will pay in spades. 
13. Waiting until skein #2 to number the pegs is like waiting until kid #2 to buy a crib   
14. Make sure you understand what the handy website means by "wrap around last peg and continue"
15. Random crosses in the warp due to #14 are never a good sign
16. The combination of #13-15 has a direct correlation on dye success
17. #15 alone can drive one to drink when the first skein is removed and you see what you have wrought
18. Always have a second skein to redeem yourself and your faith in the yarn
19. Second skeins, like second wives, make you feel all sexy and smart
20. If you are going to let dice decide your striping pattern, you have to actually heed the dice and not keep re-rolling
21. Whatever amount of kool-aid you think you will need, double it
22. Whatever amount of water seems like a good idea for mixing, halve it, now halve it again 
23. Failure to heed #21-22 may result in the uncontrollable urge to buy yarn at Midnight on a Friday to have a "do-over"
24. Chocolate helps to control # 23 
25. Wet yarn is WET
26. A bathing suit is more appropriate to this activity than say, yoga pants
27. Head to toe scuba gear might be more appropriate
28. Plastic wrap faced with wet yarn will simply beg for mercy
29. Dye runs.  Lots of dye runs EVERYWHERE. 
30. Running dye plus ineffective plastic wrap =  why did you bother to have five seperate colors 
31. Given enough chocolate, you may decide that R-P-O-Y is not such a bad color
32. #31 is only true if you did not spend three days making a warping board, five hours setting everything up, all to make STRIPES
33. Moving sections of dyed yarn is a bad idea.   
34. Piling sections into a bucket to go upstairs to the microwave is tantamount to declaring your desire for #31. 
35. Checking the amount of yarn in the pyrex container for fit would be a good idea, before the yarn is wet, drippy, and runny
36. Head to toe itching might be a bad sigh.
37. Kool-aid allergies are possible, but improbable. 
38. Citric acid is a major ingredient in chemical peels. 
39. Decide that you will love your new skin.   
40. The sight of the tangled yarn spaghetti drying makes everything worth it
41. It is not abnormal to need to pee 85 times during the night just to check on the gorgeous yarn
42. It is okay to decide that dreaded skein #1 may never get back on the warp board.
43. Weeping bitterly over #42 is to be expected.
44. Even when good skein #2 goes back on the board, it will still take 2 and half episodes of Queer as Folk to wind the ball
45. Now is good time to question getting 300+ yard skeins.   
46. Watching the ball take shape is almost--ALMOST better than knitting
47. The urge to take 75 pictures of the finished product is understandable
48. The urge to dye more yarn RIGHT NOW is too.
49. The desire to knit a test swatch at 1 a.m. may not be,  but you will want to do it anyway 
50. The desire to felt the test swatch may indicate your conversion to the dark side. 
51. Forgoing Black Sheep, buying more naked yarn instead,  buying 50 packets of kool-aid and drawing diagrams while muttering to oneself means the conversion is now complete!

Comments

[Kathy]

I am so glad I finally discovered that you have a knitting blog! Too cool! Personally I think you're great and way, way too hard on yourself. But that's just me....

I haven't jumped into dying yet, but it looks wild!

[Chris]

Brilliant and eerily accurate! Altho I ended up using a wine rack to hold the yarn while I niddy noddied it off - no way was it going back onto the warping board...