• Crochet - Dyeing

    Another May Dye Pot

    June 23, 2021 - By 

    There is nothing like getting your hands a little messy. When Easter egg dye was on clearance, I bought a few packages and used some of the colors. Since I had purchased several kits, I put the similar colors together, wrapped in plastic so that they would stay dry. Three colors that I thought would be in the red/orange/purple family weren’t. The colors ended up being orange, yellow and blue. After adding the vinegar and water, there was no turning back. My lovely assistant, my mother, selected the order of the colors before the tablets were dissolved based on what we thought they were. After they were dissolved, we changed the placement of the colors and put the blue between the yellow and orange then the dyeing adventure began. I used rubber bands to separate the hanks in approximate thirds, then soaked them a little to help the colors bond with the wool better.

    The hanks were soaked, doused with all the dye for the particular section and massaged to ensure better coverage. Once the dye was exhausted, the hanks were wrapped in plastic and micro waved in two minute intervals until the water ran clear. The hanks were allowed to sit for a little to cool.

    The yellow and orange were much more vibrant than I anticipated, the blue color ended up being a periwinkle color. Everything turned out well. I like the Swish Worsted base which is a superwash and can be machine washed and dried. I don’t know what it will be like in the future or how much it will pill since it is a Merino base but it’s soft and worked up well. I only dyed two hanks and for the future, for a hat and scarf set, I would dye three which would give me 660 yards and would be less limiting for projects that require more yardage. The previous dye project had a similar yardage but I’m planning to make a scarf with those two cakes.

    There are still some dye tablets left and some bare hanks. Next time, I might go for a speckled look or “paint” several colors on to the hanks for a riot of color.

    The yarn was used to for the 60th hat and scarf set, officially completing the hat and scarf goal for the year. I’ve continued making hat and scarf sets, but wanted to make something special to meet the goal. More hats and scarves = more people who will be warm this winter.

    Happy crocheting!

  • Dyeing - trial and error

    A Dyeing Adventure

    March 7, 2020 - By 

    Last year, I dyed some yarn with Kool-Aid. I liked the yarn and the colors that I used. After Easter of 2019, I purchased some Paas kits on sale to dye some yarn. For the experiment, I used Valley Yarns Berkshire 100 Gram Hank from Webs. The wool and mohair blend is very similar to undyed Brown Sheep yarn. It’s been the base of a couple of dyeing projects that I have done – with coffee, Kool-Aid and Easter egg dye.

    This time, I let my lovely assistant, my mother, pick the colors that I would use. Charged with selecting four colors, she picked some and made an educated guess as to what one would look like. To give as much a of color variety as possible I bought four of the nine packs of color to make the yarn more vibrant. When using Easter egg dye selecting the colors isn’t always easy especially with the nine pack because you don’t know what the colors actually will look like until they are mixed with the vinegar and water. For my purposes, I didn’t add any water, just four tablets of the same color and vinegar to almost the brim of the squirt bottle. The four tablets that I used ended up being a light green, a darker/Kelly green, aqua and pink. I asked my assistant if she had a preference for the color placement and she said “don’t put the greens together.”

    I soaked the yarn before I squeezed out as much of the water as possible, laid the hanks on a heavy plastic bag to dye the yarn, then began. The colors were more vibrant than the Kool-Aid ones, but it could be the color choices or also that I didn’t soak the yarn I dyed with the drink mix long enough. When I had used all of the dye, I covered the hanks with the plastic, then rolled up the yarn and microwaved the roll on medium for about 45 minutes in 10 to 15 minute increments in a glass dish. Then I let the bundle rest to cool, rinsed the yarn, squeezed it out and then hung the hanks to dry.

    The colors were still vibrant and didn’t fade a lot once dry. The yarn is completely dry, but I haven’t had a chance to wind it up yet. Four hanks, which is 560 yards (140 yards/100g), is enough to make a hat and a scarf. The yarn from this experiment still feels soft. As last time, one of the skeins had an interesting difference in how the colors blended in one section, so I’m reserving that bit to do the hat. The pink and light green blended to make a rust/brown section.

    The fall Kool-Aid yarn dyeing experiment yielded a nice hat and scarf. One hank that was a little different and that was reserved for the hat. It worked well, the pattern that I used for the scarf curled a bit in the but I blocked it (a first for me) and the scarf looks fabulous. This was the first complete hat and scarf set that I made toward my goal this year. Thinking back, I need to look and see if I used the yarn that I dyed a couple of years ago with the Easter Egg dye, if not, I’ll have to make something.

  • Crochet - Dyeing

    Dyeing Experiment

    September 6, 2019 - By 

    In one of my kitchen cabinets I found a stash of unsweetened Kool-Aid packets and in my working yarn stash I found a couple of four skein bags of undyed worsted weight wool. Obviously, I had a dye project in mind, because I do not drink Kool-Aid and there were multiples of each flavor in flavors that I wouldn’t drink if I did – grape, orange, blue ice and some color changing flavors. All of these were unsweetened as well and I have no sugar in my house, because I like my coffee and tea unsweetened. This was definitely for a dyeing project.

    The yarn however, I guess it was on sale because there were eight hanks waiting to be used in my working stash. I needed a refresher on how to dye yarn with Kool-Aid. I searched online and soaked the yarn, while I prepared the dye. This was something I had done before so I got out the squeeze bottles, poured in the flavors/colors that I wanted to use and then filled the bottles with vinegar. Many directions say to use vinegar and water. I just use vinegar and it works well.

    Wild Cherry, Grape and Orange were chosen for my test this time. Initially, I wanted to have mostly red in the color scheme. There were only six packets of wild cherry and I wanted a more vibrant color, more colors were added to the experiment. I added a little of a packet of grape to the orange dye to make it darker. The color ended up looking more like a muted than very bright. A couple of months ago when I was in an office supply store, I purchased some large rubber bands, to purposely keep some natural sections on the yarn.

    The yarn looks lovely and I was anxious to wind it up, though I am not sure what pattern I want to use for the hat and scarf. I dyed four hanks which is enough for a hat and scarf. Though, the next time I do this I would buy more or have more of the drink mix to have more concentrated color, as well as turn the work to make sure that the dye gets through to both sides. I’ve dyed before and know that it’s important to get enough saturation, but I wanted to see what would happen if I just let the dye go where it did, not turning the hanks, just squeezing it through (wearing plastic gloves).  Once all the dye was on the yarn, I wrapped it in plastic and heated it in the microwave to set the colors. After testing a section to see if the water squeezed through the skeins was clear, and it cooled sufficiently, I put the hanks in a bowl with a little dishwashing liquid and rinsed it. The water was clear, which was a good sign and I hung the skeins to dry.

    One hank has a little more natural color than I intended, that one will be used for the hat. If I turned it more or used more dye, maybe it would have turned out differently. The colors weren’t as far off as I thought. When the colors are wet, they are darker, but I was pleased with how they turned out. Eager to see how the yarn would look wound, I put it on my swift and wound the hanks up last night.

    A few years ago, I took a class through my favorite yarn shop. Since this was an at home project, I wanted to use dyes that are safe to use in dishes at home and are easy to buy. Drink mixes and food coloring are easy to find and use. Since this is just something I wanted to dabble in and not make a deep dive or further cash outlay, I went with what I had.

    Inspiration hasn’t struck yet… When I discover the right pattern for the hat and scarf, then I will start stitching, for now I’m content with admiring my newly dyed yarn and planning the colors for my next four skeins.