Seth’s Stacking Dimes
We are a family of makers. This year for my birthday, my son wanted to weld me a gift and asked what he could make to support my fiber obsession. I could think of no intersection between our two very disparate passions. Seth found one though in the form of a colour inspiration. When performed properly, TIG welding uses heat, Argon gas, and donor metal to form what look like stacked silver dimes. With manipulation of those inputs, those welds can become quite colourful and artistic. His welds are stunning and I am so touched by his gift.
Seth and I were both excited to see how this would translate to yarn. A shiny silk would have been the perfect base but I had none available so I chose a non-SW merino with 30 % silk. Using reusable zip ties, I partitioned eight welding spots equally spaced around the skein. In each of those partitions, I added a brownish gold beside the zip ties, then a blue, then a bright pink in the center. I then added some diluted grey to the dye pan and heat set on low immersion with citric acid. The colours blended far too much and made so much green. Maybe you can spot the problem I had before even adding the grey. I presoaked the skein but didn’t wring it out enough. Colours were spreading before I added any extra water and dye. This made an interesting skein once it dried but not at all what we were hoping for.
I should have known better and I do know better. I should have dyed the yarn with grey first and I should have wrung it out more before adding the weld colours. So that’s what I did with the second skein. I repeated the zip tying and the colours once the grey was set in this second skein. The colours were much more distinct but that unwanted green was still popping up.
I discussed this with Seth and he noticed I had the heat signature of the colours in the wrong order. Blue is the hottest of the colours and should have been in the center of my “welds”. This was exciting because it meant that gold and blue would no longer touch and I could hopefully avoid green. So the third skein was dyed with this new colour order, gold, pink, blue. But I was so set on not mixing colours that I foolishly tried a very low immersion bath and burned a pan! Again, I should have known. I do know. I should have steam set this skein but I no longer have a steamer that works with our new induction range.
Steaming was really the only option though to prevent colour spread. So Seth and I scavenged the kitchen and found a canning lifter that fits inside my large pots. He bent back the handles so they would hang on the edge of the pot several inches above any steaming water and I secured the lifter to the pot handles with reusable zip ties.
We were ready to try a fourth skein and took the opportunity to add a bit more grey as well. Eureka! Stacking Dimes was eventually a success and we are both so happy with it! As with welding, it’s fascinating to see how the same materials input in different ways can create such varied results. I really enjoyed this challenge and this gift of colour from my son. But I especially enjoyed finding common ground in our mutual excitement over art.
