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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Adventures in yarn dyeing . . .

I knit. I crochet. To do these of course you need yarn. Yarn, however does not always come in the color or color combinations you like. That's when you buy wool and Kool Aid and have some good messy fun!

Today I went to Threads Unlimited and purchaned two hanks of lace weight Merino Wool, then a quick trip to Brookshires to pick up some kool aid and vinegar (for my cotton yarn dyeing experiment).



First I soak my wool in a nice lukewarm bath of water and a tiny squirt of dish soap. No the water is not brown or dirty, my camera is just insane.













After 30 minutes of soak time the yarn moved into a glass dish, then gets covered in water. Thrilling.














Now mix a half a cup of water to a package of Kool Aid. Drizzle on yarn.
















All done! Now into the mircowave it goes for about 15-20 minutes.















When the water in the dish is clear pour into sink, douse with cold water, pick up and wring out. Go outside and take pictures. This is the first hank.





















And the second.























They're not perfect, but who knows they may knit up well!



And this is my cotton yarn dyeing attempt, I'll only blog about it if it comes out ok. LMAO!

2 comments:

Nik said...

NOOOO. we want to hear about it even if it's bad. *lol*

Melissa said...

very cool! I have some acid dyes that I don't use. If you want them, I can leave them at Threads for you or we can meet up and you can get them.
Cotton won't hold dye too well unless you use a mordant (I think that's the word) because it doesn't have the same properties as wool with the acid based dyes. You can buy mordant (I hope that's the right word!) for cotton at Dharma Trading Company I think. Cotton's a huge pain in the butt to dye.