Dyeing, Second Attempt

On Friday my daughter and I made another go at dyeing our own yarn.  We each had a skein of Patons Classic Wool and were ready to go.  I decided to try a method I vaguely remembered seeing somewhere online: laying yarn over plastic wrap, “painting” it with the dye, then wrapping it up and heating by some means.  After we went through all the trouble, I unearthed Knitty’s detailed instructions.  Ah well, such is life. We’ll have them for next time.

My daughter (who is three) decided she wanted purple, blue and green yarn.  I used quart-size jars filled with water and a melange of Kool-Aid and food coloring.  The purple we made with a packet of Blue Raspberry and a packet of Strawberry.  The green and blue were made with food coloring and a few tablespoons of vinegar (I know now this isn’t enough to get a saturated color).  We ended up having much too much water, nonetheless hers turned out pastel, muted – and really beautiful.

Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I set out with my own skein.  I decided I wanted watermelon-y colors: a nice deep red, a fruity pink, a lime green and maybe a lemonade yellow.  I  mixed (with much less water this time), began to pour – and was horrified as the red ran and bled and turned my yarn into a bloody mess.  Actually, I exaggerate.  It looked alright except for the green parts.  They looked greenish brown and not at all lovely.We hung our yarns in the bathroom to dry.  I sighed as I looked at my preschool-aged daughter’s lovely yarn and my messy, ugly stuff.  Disgusted, I took it back into the kitchen.  Time to overdye it.  I mixed a pot of water, red food coloring and plenty of vinegar.  Plopped the yarn in, let it almost come to a boil then let it sit, covered for about half an hour.  After letting it cool and hang to dry, I still wasn’t very pleased with the results.  It wasn’t until I wound it into a ball that I realized it did, in fact, turn out pretty nicely – for an almost-disaster.

It’s hard to tell here, but it’s red, pink, purple (those are the green sections), yellow and light orange.

Some things I’ve learned:

1.  Wet wool smells like wet dog.
2. Red dye almost never will remove itself from your fingernails.
3. I need a ball winder and swift.