If you listened to my interview with the lovely Lara Neel, you might remember me mentioning that I have been trying to convince my parents to go into hand-dyeing in their (impending) retirement. Well, today I tried hand-dyeing myself for the first time, and I now have an increased admiration for dyers and a better understanding of why those gorgeous skeins command such a high price.

I hadn’t tried dyeing before because I thought it required lots of extra equipment and careful measuring. Then I came across this etsy video which made it look sooo easy (not to mention that the resulting lavender is one of my favourite colours) that I had to try it right away. Since you’re only using regular foodstuffs, you don’t need special pans or protective gear. I picked up a red cabbage at the supermarket and found myself on Saturday morning getting ready for a morning of dyeing. Well, that morning turned into two days of boiling, rinsing, waiting, and blow drying, but it was all great fun.

So first of all I chopped up one whole red cabbage as small as I could, and boiled it with 2 tablespoons of salt for 30mins. Purple fingers, once again!

Meanwhile I let the yarn sit in a warm bowl of water, as instructed. The yarn is the lace/fingering-weight cotton I bought at the seaside this summer.

I didn’t use any mordants. I had considered using lemon juice, as that’s what I mix in with the henna for my hair, but apparently that’s only for animal fibres, whereas plant fibres like cotton and silk require an alkaline mordant (so says one commenter, anyway!). As for cream of tartar or alum, I have little idea of what they are or where I can get them in Turkey. So alas, no mordant.

After 30mins I strained the cabbage, leaving the purple cabbage juice in the pan. I felt a bit bad throwing all that cabbage away, but I didn’t know what I could do with a colander full of too-salty cabbage. :/

So once I brought the pan up to boil again, I added the soaked yarn and boiled it for nearly an hour. I prodded and turned the yarn around every so often to make sure it was thoroughly soaked. The pan got rather short on water around 30mins in, so I boiled some more water in the kettle and poured it in.

The yarn looked a delicious pinky purple in the water, but when I pulled it out it was a pale lavender.

Then came the most exciting part! Having read this cool KnitPicks article the day before I had divided my large hank into 3: 1 big part that would remain lilac, 1 smaller part that would be over-dyed green, and one tiny “transitional” part that I was going to try to make a lighter green. A little ambitious, I know…

Having fished out my hank, I added a packet of baking powder to the pot. It fizzled and looked a bit green, but when I dipped the spoon in it was still quite purple. So I drained some of the liquid away, and added another packet. Then I brought it up to boil and voila, green! Excitement!

So I placed my small hank in, and left it to boil for about 30mins. I could have left it longer, but most of the water had evaporated and I didn’t want to add any more in case I lightened the colour. The smallest hank I dipped in and drew out immediately. It turned a very pretty light teal colour.

Since I had quite a bit of the dye liquids left over, I couldn’t resist one last experiment. I brewed some very strong Turkish tea in a small saucepan and popped another hank in for about 40mins. It turned a lovely tan colour. I used loose tea, and some of it got past my strainer, but it wasn’t a big deal. I just gave it a good shake when it was a little dryer, and most of the tea leaves fell out.

I wanted to try some yarn painting, so I lay my hank out on a piece of aluminium foil and dripped pools of the red cabbage + baking powder mixture over it.

It looked really pretty at this stage, so I dried it with a hair dryer to try and keep the colours from moving too much. That didn’t work, unfortunately, the green and tea-colour merged together and I ended up with this semi-solid colour, with streaks of dull green and somehow also purple! It’s very subtle but I love the way it looks. In the end it’ll be easier to knit into a pattern than the splotchy brown/green would have been.

The final result:

tea + “green cabbage”:

green cabbage on the left, red cabbage on the right (all still damp). The streaks of dark colour are from fibres that were touching the side of the hot pan. Interesting, no?

Strangely the hank with the red cabbage turned from a pale blue when damp, to a pretty pale lavender, with streaks of green, when dry. The green didn’t change in hue, and in fact there’s hardly any difference between the hank I dipped in & pulled out, and the one I left to boil for half an hour! Also, the baking powder’s made the green yarn a bit “crunchy”. Hopefully another rinse in some Eucalan will soften it up once more.

Not quite up to The Natural Dye Studio, but I’m pleased with my first attempt. :) How colourfast they will be, I don’t know. I’m going to swatch & wash the yarn soon, and I’ll blog about my results. Hopefully I can make a nice shawl out of my first hand-dyed yarn.

other resources you might like to check out

• Dyeing in the Kitchen
• How to Make Vegetable Dye
• Colorways, Fall 2011 eMag – PC (MAC)

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1. Wordless Wednesday

First we took the tram to Çemberlitaş. The next stop says “Grand Bazaar” but the tram was so packed we couldn’t stand another stop. Don’t go on saturday afternoons!

At Çemberlitaş we asked for directions, and a shopkeeper told us to follow the mosque round until we got to Mahmutpaşa Street. Following the mosque around is fairly easy, but figuring out what street you’re on, is not. Your best bet, if you’re a foreigner, is to have “Kürkçü Han” written on a piece of paper, and show it to someone every few steps. According to my friend, it’s best not to take just one person’s word for it.

Walking down Vezirhan Street…

Passing Nuru Osmaniye Mosque on the left…

Turning left here…

Having entered Kapalı Çarşı by the Kürçüler entrance, we turned right, and this is the street we were on.

At the end of this street we turned right…

…and were finally on Mahmutpaşa. We asked directions again, and someone pointed out the tiny corner of red building in the distance. There it is!

So close…

…and yet so far.

Here at last. The entrance is right below the sign. You can see the Nako advertisement that everyone mentioned on the Ravelry forums. It’s actually an advert for one of the shops upstairs, which is where I ended up going.

Squuueeezing through the narrow entrance…

… and into the courtyard. We couldn’t see much yarn at first glance, so we headed upstairs.

A view from upstairs, with a lovely display of acrylic fun fur. Mmm…

Gülüm Yün was the first shop we came across when we went upstairs (after the acrylic fun fur), so I dove in. There wasn’t anything very different from what I get in Ankara, though there was more choice in colour. They did have some oddments of yarns which are produced in Turkey, such as King Cole, and some Lion Brand (not much Alpine about Alpine Wool, I’m afraid), but I doubt that will tempt tourists all that much. :) Here’s what I got (without duplicates):

Fridica wrote a fascinating post about Unitas yarns that are different but have the same label, and someone commented that they did the same thing in Turkey with the “export” label. You can see from my “haul” that I have 2 yarns that are “Ormo Export” but are completely different. I’ve also seen a “Nako Export” label. I think these are just surplus yarns that they package up and sell any-which-way. From left to right: Nako Saf Yün (pure wool), King Cole Riot (70% “premium” acrylic, 30% wool), Ormo Export (nothing on the label), & Ormo Export (85% wool, 15% acrylic). The unidentified Export yarn knits up very soft and has nice colour transitions. It’s similar to the Riot, which I also bought purely on account of its colours. It’s a bit like a cheap acrylic version of Rowan Tapestry. The turquoise yarn is actually very nice too, and about 4ply weight. I really look forward to knitting with it.

On the Map

Cemberlitas Tram Station to Mahmutpasa St

The red spot marks the “Kürçüler” entrance to Kapalı Çarşı (sounds about right!).

Down Mahmutpasa to the Kürkcu Han

Of course, you don’t necessarily have to go the way we did. If possible, avoid going at the weekend, too. As you can see, all the streets are very narrow. We were so tired of being jostled, that we didn’t look anywhere else. Unfortunately getting out of the Kapalı Çarşı area took us almost longer than getting in! It’s still a great experience though, and if you have the time & perseverance to look around, I’m sure you’ll grab many good bargains.

What to Buy in Turkey?

- Cotton. Everyone says this & it’s true. There’s some really nice cotton around, though most of it is mercerised. A brand called Rozetti recently released an aran-weight natural cotton that is really nice (I used it for some potholders). I’ve noticed some nice bamboo yarn too, though I haven’t tried knitting with any.

- Accessories. You’ll find some really cheap & colourful notions in Turkish yarn shops. Some of the local knitting needles & crochet hooks can be a bit rubbish, but there’s plenty of really nice, cute stuff. Surprisingly, I’ve also come across a lot of Clover products here!

- Embellishments. Turkish haberdasheries are wonderful. Buttons, ribbons, lace, and loads more is to be found in profusion. I recommend you fill your boots. :)

Other things to do in Istanbul

Have mint gelato on Istiklal Street.

Have a late breakfast at the weekend. This was at Savoy in Cihangir. We also went to Midpoint on Istiklal which had a beautiful view, and unlimited tea.

I hope this post was helpful, and that you’ll visit Istanbul soon. If you know of any other good yarn shopping destinations, let me know in the comments!

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1. A Tale of Two Yarns
2. Summer Knitting

I’m not tidy, but I’m organised. These images have been carefully framed to illustrate my organisation & craftily evade the piles and deluges of mess as-yet-unorganised-matter. I like having layers of clothes and yarns lying around, because they are a constant source of inspiration, suggesting new colour-combinations, and textures. At the same time I love being organised, because then I can find out what is unnecessary or what doesn’t belong, and I can (hopefully) become more efficient. Efficiency is closely related to grace and elegance for me, two values I strive towards.

Luckily, I’ve recently come to notice that I have a very good visual memory when it comes to putting things in places; I rarely ever lose anything. Unfortunately this applies to biscuits as much as it does to keys. It also applies to other people’s biscuits…

Anyway, yarn! I mentioned on Monday’s post that I recently moved house, and this was a great opportunity to re-organise. I have been going through a bit of a pink phase / pink haze, so I covered my files in stripey pink, to match some old sheets I found, and decided to arrange some of my yarn to match. These shelves divide my sleep area from my “work area” & can be accessed from both sides, which is very handy. At the top is a plastic wig-stand that I recently spray-painted; it used to be a very obnoxious green. Right now it holds my penultimate Minty (I really need to blog about my Minty obsession); my other hats are artfully scattered and layered on available furniture.

I have a pop-up laundry basket that holds my “bundles” of yarn. These are all in their own plastic bags, which look ugly, so I leave a few odd balls on top. Another plastic laundry basket has a few bags of random yarn, and two needle-boxes on top. There’s also an old copy-paper box under my desk that has some old WIPs. Any current knitting is usually on top of my desk. Unfortunately, pretty much everything is on top of my desk, so sometimes I pin things to my corkboard, just so I can see them.

I also have four crates, which hold odd-balls (the bottom one has my stamp collection). I must mention that a good deal of my stash is still in the UK. I travel around a lot & have no idea where I will “settle”, so some elements of my knitting paraphernalia reflect this. For example, I still use an old Graze box to keep my notions, needles, bits & bobs, because it’s light & won’t break. I almost exclusively use circular needles, because they’re easier to squash into a suitcase. I really need to get a bag to store them though, or invest in some interchangeable circulars. DPNs are in jars on my desk. I’ll show you those when I get around to knitting some of those cute cabled covers for them. I’ve scanned the interesting bits from most of my knitting magazines / books. Books are the worst to carry, so this is really worth doing! Vacuum bags are great for storing / transporting yarn too. Of course, all knitters know that the most space-efficient way to store yarn is to knit it! :)

P.S. My summer work space is pretty dreamy, and always tidy. ;)

Have you read?

1. Educating Non-Knitters on Garment Care
2. Summer Knitting
3. Where Have You Been?

You might think that Turkey (especially Ankara) would be rich in angora, being famous for its angora goats, but even that comes plied with acrylic, or polyamide, or nylon. I was amused when I found this ball of “vintage” Nako yarn when we were moving a few months ago. Mum thinks it’s left over from a slipover she knit in the 70s. The label says “Lüks Moher” (Luxury Mohair), which is funny because, as you can see, the yarn is 15% angora & 85% acrylic. “Tiftik”, from what I can gather, is technically the term for angora mohair, but can also be used to denote any fuzzy wool; “kalın” means “thick”. Nako is probably the largest yarn manufacturer in Turkey, and you will be comforted to learn that it is still keeping up this tradition of misleading yarn naming; they currently have a yarn called “Süper Angora”, which is made up of 35% Mohair & 65% Acrylic, while their regular “Angora” is 50% mohair & 50% acrylic. Even worse, their so-called “Ankara Tiftik” has only 20% mohair.

I have to say, I still like Nako yarns though. For all their inconsistency, their 50% wool, 50% acrylic “Nakolen” is my go-to yarn (last time I used it for my Parasol Stole), because it feels nice, doesn’t pill, and comes in a wide range of colours. It’s common in Turkish to spell out foreign words phonetically, so I’m assuming the “-len” here is a transliteration of “laine”, again, not entirely accurate. Their “Merino”, though, you will be glad to hear, is in fact 100% merino (I used it for my pink hottie cover). And not to be too harsh on Nako, even our beloved Rowan isn’t above wily naming tricks. Their “Cashsoft” collection is a little short on “cashmere”, and high on “cash” for my liking.

As my second yarn, I thought I would choose a contemporary yarn that shows the “modern face of knitting” in Turkey. This is “Derya’s Choice”. Not only mine, but my namesake, Derya Baykal’s. Quoted on the ball-band she says “I’m certain you’ll enjoy knitting as much as I do, with this yarn.” This “Super Pearl” certainly isn’t a bad yarn, and I love the colours that are available. I can’t help wondering how many colours were available when Mum was knitting her slipover in the 70s. I’m sure there was nothing like this on TV back then:

“‘Derya’s World’ from 14 March onwards, every weekday from 3pm – 6pm”! She looks rather sedate in the ball-band photo in comparison, doesn’t she? Her daily TV program (which has been going for years) is a whirlwind of crafts, cooking, and discussion, and is probably partly responsible for the rising popularity of knitting and crochet in Turkey. And consequently the growing variety in yarns. Personally, I’m looking forward to more wool. Thanks, Derya! :)

Note: This post is part of Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2011.

Have you read?

1. Yarn Shopping in Istanbul – Tarihi Kürkçü Han

Hello! Welcome to those of you who found me last weekend thanks to the lovely Julia. I hope I won’t disappoint! It’s Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK (a 3-day weekend, basically). I haven’t enjoyed weekends very much since I left school (whatever happened to saturday night?). For a start, I always get the urge to order yarn on Friday evening, just when I’ll have longest to wait for it. Then if I decide to go to the library, or to the supermarket, it’s always extra crowded. And then the internet is always so quiet (where do you all go? sniff). Besides, I’m not going to stop “working” just because it’s not a “workday” for most people! But well, thanks to Julia and the Twist Collective, this weekend was devoid of its usual tedium, and I was bouncing around in excitement instead. So welcome! :)

It’s another grey day here, but I hope you’re making the most of your long weekend (if you have one) to do some knitting. I felt like something quick and cosy yesterday & found this in my stash. I love Colinette so much. This is One Zero in the colourway ‘Banwy’ (I wish their website still had those charming blurbs, remember those?). I found myself driving (well, being driven) through Banwy the other day, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to stop and scout out the Colinette workshop. Anyway, I absolutely adore this colourway (though no photos can do it justice), in particular the inky blacks that look like they’ve been dripped onto a light mossy green pool. Welsh slate, mossy rocks, tenebrous woods, and (this is pure genius) the rosy glow of morning sunshine on limewash. How did they do it? How did those clever Colinette dyers manage to put all this in a yarn?

You really don’t need to work hard to show it off. Sometimes the simplest thing is the best: stocking stitch (stockinette for Colinette, you might say). Wide and loose cowls seem to be in fashion this winter, but I like mine to actually keep my neck warm! And this is the perfect width for that. It’s jolly tricky taking photos of yourself with a manual focus 50mm lens, by the way.

There were so many sixes in this pattern, I decided to call it the Sixes Cowl, maybe it’ll make it easier for you to remember if you decide to knit one.

Simple Instructions for the Sixes Cowl

You might just be able to squeeze a cowl out of one hank of One Zero, but get a couple (or 6) just to be sure.
Gauge is also a bit tricky since One Zero is a thick & thin yarn, but mine is approx. 12 sts / 19 rows to 10cm/4in of stocking st.

Using 6mm 60cm circular needles,

Cast on 66 sts & join to work in the round.
Work in 1×1 rib for 6 rows.
Work in stocking stitch for 30cm / 12in (or however long you desire).
Work 6 rows in 1×1 rib.
Cast off in rib.
Weave in ends (my cowl is still umbilical).

Easy, eh? Look at that sweet wobbly cast off! Because of the uneven nature of the yarn, your stocking stitch will have gentle waves. I recommend you enjoy it that way, rather than trying to block it flat. If you need help with circular knitting, read All About Circular Knitting. And did I mention you can wear it either way out?

Just in case you haven’t got any One Zero handy though, and you can’t bear the wait, how about having a picture of it to warm up your desktop? You can download a large copy of the photo above from Flickr, which should shrink to size when you apply it to your desktop. If it doesn’t work though, let me know your screen resolution & I’ll see if I can whip up some specific sizes. :)

P.S. I was very tempted to call this ‘Cawl’ (pronounced ‘cowl’), which is a hearty Welsh soup made with leftovers. Just the thing after a long damp walk. But then I thought (cowls being addictive) that maybe I’ll knit another cowl to call Cawl, what do you think? ;)