I have been fascinated by Lynette Meek’s painted knitting. The link is to her blog where she posts lots of information and by the way, she has a booklet out now on how to paint your knitting.
I decided that I had to try some painted knitting, since I have a very nice chunky alpacalicious yarn, which I know takes Kool Aid dyes very well. I chose a very simple flower pattern in eyelet lace, quickly knit both sides of the scarf and then grafted the two sides together – not so quickly, because I was in a hurry, by then, to get painting and of course made mistakes, which slowed me down!!
I had already bought several packets of Kool Aid in the colours (flavours) that I wanted to use, I just had to find a paint brush and I was ready. I borrowed a paint brush from the 18-year-old – I secretly think that it was really my brush, which he had borrowed and claimed was his – Oh well.
Now to mix the dyes. I used 3 egg cups and put about 2-3 tablespoons of warm water in each. I then emptied half the crystals from Ice Blue, Lemon Lime and Grape into the cups. I gave them a quick stir and headed outside where my scarf, which I had just soaked in luke warm water, was waiting to be painted.
I wanted a provincial print effect – I know it’s chunky yarn, who am I kidding? Anyway, I painted the leaves of the lace stitch green, the centre of the flower grape (purple) and the outside of the flower blue. The colour runs a little, which creates a water colour look and dilutes the dye a little – an effect I like and I know that I can’t change this. I just have to work with it.
At first I let the scarf hang over the edge of the table as I painted; but the dyes ran a little too much so I decided to work the other colours with the scarf flat on the table.
 |
| painted flower motif on scarf in chunky yarn |
I folded the scarf in half and then in half again over an old tea towel so that the flowers wouldn’t touch each other and popped the garment in a bowl which I popped in the microwave. Two sessions of re-heat (6mins) and the dyes were set. When I rinsed the scarf in luke warm water, no colour came out, so I hung it on a railing to dry. This was just so fast and so easy and so much fun!!!
Now to try some finer yarn and maybe rayon.