Please let me know if this should go in a different area… I’m still new to this forum!
Does anyone here dye their own yarn? I tried today for the first time, using Bernat Lana natural colored yarn as my base. Then I made a big skein by wrapping the yarn across a distance using cirucular laundry baskets as the ends. Then I used grape, cherry, and some Hawaiian Punch green colored kool-aid to dye it.
I wanted the dyed sections to be long enough to stripe some socks.
I would be interested to see others’ results if you do it yourself. Although it’s a lot of work to go through (especially with a 22-month-old clinging to everything), the results were so completely worth it!!
Edit - Here is a pic of it (finally dry!!). I just love how it came out. Now I just have to finish the other hank that I’m dyeing and figure out how to make socks.
wow! Yours were so pretty! I’ll have to post a picture of mine tonite after it’s done drying. I have another skein to dye (after I detangle it… urg!!! :doh: ). I can’t wait to see it in a hank!!!
nah… I’m hoping that this first hank will make a whole (short?) pair of socks.
The other one that I dyed (which is hanging to dry right now) is rainbow colored. And I tied off the sections much shorter than the first. The first’s sections are long enough to stripe, but the second is, I guess, just variegated. I’ll post a pic when it’s done drying and I wrap it.
I kind of used a combination of these techniques with mine: I got my pan, put plain cold tap water in (doesn’t matter how much water, only how much kool-aid). Then I add one pack of kool-aid and stirred it up to dissolve the powder. I added the part of the skein I wanted dyed (I start with the darker colors, that way I can overlap the colors - no white spots - and it won’t look funny) and turned the burner on high.
I used a plastic potato masher to push on the yarn and keep it in the water. As soon as it starts to simmer and boil, make sure you push all the yarn into the water. This is the critical time. This is the point where the wool will almost immediately absorb the kool-aid. All of it!! It’s like magic, LOL.
But anyway, it is amazingly easy… you really can’t mess it up.
Hello everyone…I just started dabbling in hand dyeing too…please visit my blog by clicking on the WWW button and then click on the “Dyeing” category to see them all.
It’s way too much fun…not sure which I prefer though…acid dyes or Koolaid…get such a different effect with each!
Here’s the latest one I did and the rest are on my blog. Enjoy!
Has anyone figured out a way to get more muted colors? I love the bright, vibrant colors, but I’d also like to do some colors that are a little softer.
thanks for the info!