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