Sunday, January 10, 2016

Partially successful

I dyed my second skein of yarn last week and I must say it turned out better than the first. This go around I decided to hand-paint the yarn rather than kettle dye. I had to pick up some additional materials to do this otherwise it would have been a huge disaster.

One of the materials I needed were bottles that had a tip so I could control how much dye solution was coming out. The bottles look like mini versions of old ketchup and mustard bottles diners use to have.

I was surprised at how hard it was to find these. I looked everywhere and couldn't find them. I thought surely there would be some in the kids craft section of most stores......big NO there. I finally asked an employee of one store to help me out.  I was taken to the cake decorating section and viola! there they were. They were bigger than I anticipated but they'd do the trick.

I prepped all my materials as needed: the yarn soaked in a vinegar water bath for a good 3 hours to make sure all the fibers were soaked, I mixed my dyes and wrote down how much of each dye I used to get the color, and I laid down cling wrap on the counter to protect my surface.

As I started dyeing I realized that I had forgotten one very important material......rubber gloves! I wasn't going to let this stop me from dyeing. I attempted to do a makeshift glove from my roll of cling wrap.  It sorta worked but it didn't stop my hands from being covered in dye. Good news is the dye washed off fairly quickly. By mid-week I only had remnants around my nail beds


Once the skein was dyed to my liking, I used the microwave method for heat to set the color. I gleaned this method from a youtube video. I've watched so many I don't quite remember which one it was to give them any credit.

My vision for this yarn as to have 3 blocks of color and leave the other part the natural color of the yarn. I had this picture of how cool the color would look after the yarn was hanked. The results weren't exactly what I had pictured, but it was still pretty cool looking.  I originally had wanted to see more of the bare color and less of the dye. I'll know next time to make my color sections a bit smaller.


I can't wait to see how this looks once it's worked up. I'm not sure what I'll make yet but I'm sure it'll be fabulous when I do.

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