The Hot and Steamy Post We've All Been Waiting For

Like I promised, I'm back again this week with a different dyeing technique that is supposed to keep my colours bright and in their place.

Steam bath.

I followed Anette of Fiber Artsy's Tutorial because I wanted clear directions and to be a little more sure of what I was doing.  I love to improvise and take chances, but there's a time and a place and I for this round of dyeing I wanted to do it right.

Yet, despite following a tutorial that was well documented for being successful, I did get a bit nervous at this stage because of what happened to my colours last week.  

I love this intense dark purple with sunshiny yellow, and didn't want to see them muddy into nothingness like they did last time, because while I do like the look of the yarn, it wasn't what I was going for. 

However, it doesn't do any good to worry at this step in the process so I wrapped it up anyway and let it steam for an hour and cool overnight.

Waking up and unrolling this in the morning before work felt like a special present.  Not that I expected the tutorial to have lied to me, I just expected that some gremlin I forgot to pay off would have hopped in the pot and mixed my colours to the point of hideousness.  I mean, what kind of universe would let my colours turn out so nice?

The steam bath outcome is on the right, and last week's dye bath result is on the left.  As you can see the colour is perfectly preserved and well defined with the steam bath, whereas the dye bath melded the colours together completely.  They were given the exact same amount of dye, had the dye painted on them the exact same way, and the dyes applied were mixed to the same proportions (because science is only reliable when you repeat the steps with diligence).  

I found this to be a fantastic learning lesson, and am also pleased to say that I love both of my outcomes, just for different reasons.  I plan to make sweaters out of both of them, and fondly consider them the sister sweaters.

So until those sweaters come around, or at least until I get another project on the books...

Stay sweet, stay crafty, and stay tuned.