Wednesday, March 11, 2009

It's all about Yarn Dyeing

Could this be my new Hobby? Who knows, but one thing I know is that dyeing yarn by hand is a lot of fun. I did my research and the yarn is soaked half an hour, 30 minutes in warm like water with some liquid dish soap added two drops, you may add some vinegar at this time to the water or not,but for soaking plain water and dish soap any container will do. Half and hour later, squeezing the excess water out from the yarn, the yarn is ready for the already made dyes.
The second step is a bit tricky and the best thing you can do is to use mason jars or to use the same plastic containers all the time. Remember that you should mark these containers for reuse for dyeing only. Never use these containers for anything else as some dyes, even vegetable dyes may be harmful to you, on your skin, inhaled. Anyway they are chemicals whether from vegetable nature or not, rubber gloves, latex, vinyl they will serve to preserve your alabaster skin beautiful.
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The second step is to have your color mixes ready according to the instructions you have, vinegar is very important when it comes to dyeing wool, it sets the color in. For this project I even had some kool aid solution (light Yellow), and some food coloring(Blue). Nevertheless the colors that I have here are Chery, Aztec Gold and Turquoise from the EBay store. You can buy them from Knit Picks at a better deal. I only good enough for the two skeins that you saw, but I Imagine that I could have used all the color on 100 grams of wool. I stretched it and experimented adding and combining them. I had plastic bags on top of a towel on the kitchen floor, there was very little mess, I can say almost none.
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Once you are ready you paint your yarn. I would recommend paint by the numbers and rinsing your gloved hands, from color to color. You may use a brush for each color, this will allow you to keep your hands clean to handle the yarn. when you are satisfied the yarn is to your liking, is time to take the yarn and make a burrito with the plastic bag or plastic wrap. This needs to be a very good plastic or it will melt in the microwave. Yep you are going to take your yarn and make a roll, then make like a cinnamon bun and microwave the yarn 2 minutes, letting it rest 2 minutes x 3 , yep 3 times. Once the yarn is done cooking, lol, be careful handling the hot plastic wrapping, you can use lukewarm water to rinse. I allowed my yarn to stay in a clear water bath with some vinegar to help set the color better for 15 minutes then I proceeded to get the excess water out and hang them to dry.
These pictures are very very close to the real color of these skeins, I am so proud of myself, because this is something that I know I can do. I can create my own color yarn, it is cheaper to buy unfinished wool and dye the color you want. If you keep all your measurements and timings the same for the process, you should end up with the same colorway every time. Thanks for dropping by.

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