Last October I went to the Knit and Stitch show at Alexandra Palace and scored 10 skeins of Artesano cotton for £30.

I wanted a ‘throw on’ weekend sweater for an upcoming holiday and the cotton was lying there looking at me.  A search of drops gave me a base pattern and after some modifications I ended up with…

I adjusted the waist shaping and hem, added a moss stitch edging, added the same shaping to the sleeves and added the collar.

However, my crafting friends really weren’t convinced by the pooling. Most objecting to the ‘fingers’ over the bust line and hips, other objecting to the change between the bust, waist (where there are no increases) and hem.

I’ll be honest it didn’t bother me, but I wasn’t massively attached to the result so decided to try something I hadn’t done before, but for which cotton was perfectly suited.  Overdying.

Now, I’ve dyed other things in the past – garments that needed refreshing, tablecloths to match the wall paint etc… but these were all fabric and I hadn’t dyed something I had made before, and I definitely hadn’t bleached something deliberately before.  The internet was surprisingly unforthcoming about the best bleach and amounts to use.  I settled on Cillit Bang Bleach and Hygiene (it’s a purple bottle and picked up mine at Wilkinsons).  I ran a couple of inches of water into my bath (enough to cover the sweater just about) and added 100 squirts of the bleach.  After an hour, with the occasional swirl and turning over after 30 minutes I had this…

It *really* didn’t bleach out the way I expected it to.  For some reason I wasn’t expecting pinks!

After that it was a simple case of throwing it into the washing machine with a 500g packet of Dylon machine die in French Navy.  A cycle later and I had this…

and I LOVE it.

While the picture above looks like a solid hue, it really isn’t – there is beautiful, subtle tonal shifts throughout the sweater that show up in different lights.  I took a photo with flash to try and show this, so while the colour is (very) washed out – this does give an idea of the tonal changes…All in all I love it – I’ve had several comments on it while wearing it (including being asked if I frogged the original jumper) and it was a really interesting process.

I have worn it A LOT since I finished it (in fact I’m wearing it today).  For £30 (well less, I still have 4 skeins left) and the cost of the bleach/dye I am delighted.

Have you ever dyed anything?