OK folks, here you go. This is a picture of coffee-dyed yarn, along with a bit of what the color looked like before it was dyed. As a bonus you get to see a bit of my weaving. Not pressed weaving, since it is a scarf and has been (obviously) wrinkled up all summer. Hey, I never promised ironing!
Here is a pile of dyed thrums(the leftover warp that gets cut off when you are done weaving) and the original yarn. This yarn is dyed to be fairly dark, because I thought the color was prettier than the lighter color I experimented with. To answer the question that I am sure some of you are wondering, "No, the darkness of the roast has no bearing on the darkness of the dyed yarn." It is all about the weight ratio of the dye stuff to yarn. Not as much dye stuff (coffee, onion skins,
bugs,
snails, etc.)to the amount of yarn, you get a lighter colored yarn. The more stuff you use, the darker your yarn. I used only your basic
mordant of alum and cream of tarter. You can skew the colors of natural dyed yarns by tossing in other chemicals, safe ones being things such as vinegar. Not safe ones include heavy metals like copper. Yeah, I go for not messing with my septic tank and ground water too much. When I clean the basement this winter I should come across the experiment samples of different colors. When I find them, I'll pass them on.
Have I ever mentioned that I think buying/getting/giving used books is a perfectly acceptable thing to do in life? I mean, if it isn't used before I get it, it will be used right away. (Well, I don't give used books to others if i don't know how they feel about it.) I don't "collect" cookbooks, but I sure do like them. I will admit to owning quite a few of them (don't even ask), but I don't need random ones just for the sake of owning another cookbook. I have been looking at this particular one for a while now, but haven't thought it was worth $30, or even the price it would be at B&N with my mom's member discount. I even looked at it at the
store this summer on our day trip in
Portland. It was cheaper there, but I still wasn't sure it would be worth the money. I figured I would check it out from the library first and then decide if I wanted to own it. Can I just say how much I love
AbeBooks? I figured as long as I was looking for a few other books there, I might as well check prices for it too. I found it for only $4 and it showed up in my mail box yesterday.
I was looking for this book, which I
had to get. It had already fallen into my "Should I buy this cookbook?" criteria of, "If I have checked it out of the library three times already, it makes sense to buy it." I love this book (obviously since I have checked it out/renewed it at least four times and had over due fines on it), and we will see how the Bob's one is. It can't be too bad for the price (and no, shipping wasn't very much either!).
That same rule has been known to apply to other types of books as well. Mason-Dixon Knitting is on my
Powell's wish list. Why? 'Cause I have renewed/checked it out several times already (I have lost count, so it has to be more than three) and probably will again soon. I want to make their baby sweater for a friend, so need to read it again for that pattern. Besides, you would think that I might own it for all the Ballbands I have made already. (Powell's didn't have what I was looking for at the time, and AbeBooks doesn't have a wish list. I'm not really picky about where used books come from, but it is really cool that Abe is all independent booksellers.)
Now I am off to test the "The house will blow up if you turn on the furnace before October 1st" theory. It isn't even dinner time and is only 63 degrees in the house, plus there is a frost warning for tonight. I figure I can test the theory and
maybe blow up, or I can definitely freeze! Plus, I
need to make bread and it will take a lot longer at this temp. (Of course it is supposed to be seventy plus by Monday, but hey, I know how to turn it back off.)
The majority of the yarn I was dyeing was superwash merino. I also threw in a few little samples of a few other yarns. The one on the left is tencel, the second one is rayon chenille, and the rest in this picture are various kinds of cotton. None of these were very receptive to this dye process, which I knew about the cotton and had suspected about the tencel. I didn't have any samples around of coffee on these in my dye notebook, so wanted to make a few for that, even though I was pretty sure how they would turn out. If I had done it at about 500% WOG, it would have been darker, but it isn't as wash and light fast as wool.
These three samples are a cotton/viscous blend, a cotton /rayon slub blend, and a cotton silk blend. The silk took it fairly well, but not as dark as the wool did. I am looking forward to the silk wool blend I am dyeing next week. I strongly recommend you click on each of these pictures to get a larger view. I want to try dyeing some bamboo and other "vegan" yarns with coffee. Just because I am into the "learning about stuff" thing. 
So here you have a view of coffee dyed merino. Much prettier than cotton. You will notice the slightly darker spot on the twisted skein. That is why I refer to this as a "mostly solid" colorway. 
Who knew frogs liked to nest in yarn? I thought they just liked to dig holes in the garden or hang out in the garage.
