I dyed the yarn on Saturday and I am woman, hear me ROAR. That was FUN. I would love to just have my own little shop where I spun the yarn and then dyed it (or the reverse) and then sold it. Fibery bliss.
(pictures in my gallery, link at the end of this)
I had ordered the yarn from Knit Picks – the color your own yarn. I sort of half heartedly looked for a tutorial but only found a wee bit of discussion. So, in true Deb style, I winged it. I even treated myself to a new double boiler pan (aka “corn pan” to y’all Southerners). By the way, soaking yarn in vinegar is a sure way to ruin said new pan.
I bravely plunged the yarn into the vinegar (I half expected it to molt and steam or something). Ummm, how long is this supposed to soak? I decided to mash it around until it was soaked through – yowza that vinegar tears up your hands. Another question immediately arose – how the heck do you do all this without tangling up fingering weight yarn skeins?
While the yarn was soaking, I got the water boiling in another pot and put in the dye. How much? The one discussion I read said a little on a toothpick. Because I am American, more is better so I put in a lot on the end of a knife. I then took a whisk and made sure it was all dissolved (this will be really important later on). I then gently squeezed as much vinegar as possible out and put the yarn into the dye bath.
I quickly realized that one side of the yarn was going to be darker than the other so I got the potato masher OUT of the playdough toys and mash, mash, mashed. Did I already mention the tangling fear? The brown, yellow and green hanks came out beautifully. Then I did the blue. Oh. My. That was NOT what I was expecting. I swear it was all mixed up and appeared dissolved but it came out very, very mottled and splotchy. Actually, I kind of like it like that. Same thing happened with the mauve except not as dramatic. One thing that the dyeing discussion mentioned was that the colors would be taken up into the yarn and the water would be clear. That was very true with the first three but with the last two (the splotchy ones), I could not get it all taken up – I am guessing that means my knifeful amount had something to do with that. Meh.
I had to cool the yarn so that it didn’t get shocked into felting (I wasn’t sure if this was feltable yarn or not). So while the platefuls of yarn spaghetti were cooling, I did up the Kool Aid. So many wonderful sounding colors, I was literally paralyzed with choices. I finally settled on Mandarin Tangerine and Grape Berry Splash. Not together – I had five hanks left to dye (I told you in the last post that I went overboard on ordering right?). The Knitty feature on Kool Aid dyes mentioned that I should use one packet. So I used three. Great way to make neon bright colors. Actually, that was really helpful for the purple. I put the orange yarn in a drawer so I don’t have to look at it. I will probably overdye it with something. I don’t know.
I hung the whole shebang (why can’t I say that anymore without thinking of William Hung?) up on my mop and broom handles in my kitchen. I can’t wait to see it swatched up. The colors are very heathery.
Dyeing was a blast. I am already mentally going over the wools in my stash to see what I can dye. Oh, I almost forgot – I had ZERO tangling despite all the mashing and flipping that I did to the yarn. I balled it all up on Sunday.Pictures of the process in my gallery.