Dyeing: My First Yarn Dying Attempt!

And already, I have learned two three four five enormous lessons:

(1) With a 10' (stretched) diameter of yarn, MORE TIES will hold it in place much, much better.

(2) For the amount of yarn I am attempting to dye, I sorely underestimated the amount of dye I would need - using Kool-Aid and Wilton's together. Only adding the Kool-Aid since I quickly ran out of the Wilton's gel coloring. Lesson (2a) would probably be to purchase the powdered Wilton's food dye. As a result of this lesson, I did not get to attempt the ombre affect I was aiming for. As a result, there is NO recipe, just a bunch of crap added to keep color going ::insert laughing and rolling eyes smiley here::. [Just a side note now that I am on my 4th jumbo skein - I fully understand that my dyes exhausted so quickly because of the large amount of vinegar I used... when you read my method, if you're an experienced dyer you will either cringe in horror or laugh your ass off - lessons learned!]

(3) Personal dye baths must be filled to the top with liquid, otherwise the dye sits on the ends of the yarn in its bath. Ugh. I have gorgeous colors but about 8" of bare yarn still.

(4) When dealing with this amount of yarn, keeping the dye bath full of liquid is a must to keep the moisture, and thus the dye, wicking. Armed with this knowledge, I am very excited about my next attempt as I'm gonna bet that the dying goes much more quickly.

(5) When adding new colors, in different gradients or one of the two colors used to make a blended color, interesting things happen with this wicking method - one color will travel faster, or overdye everything and then be its own color once onto bare wool, or what have you. It is extraordinarily interesting!

So, here is what I have done:

Goal: To have 4 colors ombre, or blend, together where they meet outside of the dyebath. This is for my Grandma Driver, and I wanted something orange, yellow, and red.

Method:
300gms (660 yards) of Knitpicks Bare Superwash Worsted Merino yarn, joined end to end and made into a giant skein.

The skein was soaked in water with 1.5 cups of vinegar in the large crock pot for about 50 minutes. [I am on my 4th jumbo skein and now know that this heinously large amount of vinegar is why my dyes exhausted so quickly! Grrr.]

The excess moisture was squeezed out, but left the yarn damp.

The dyes were mixed in the mason jars with water from the vinegar/water dyebath (originally the dyes were added alone, then the extra and extra, oh and then the extra dye was added as the dye jar cleared FAST) and put in the water bath in the two crockpots, two jars in each pot, the pots turned on Low. The yarn was divided into four sections and each end put into its own color dye.





DyeBath 1:
4 Packs Kool Aid Lemonade
4 Packs Kool Aid Cherry
5 Packs Kool Aid Strawberry
3 Packs Cool Splashers Orange

DyeBath 2:
3/4 Tsp Wilton's Gel Buttercup Yellow
7 Packs Kool Aid Lemonade

DyeBath 3:
1/2 Tsp Wilton's Gel Christmas Red
3 Packs Kool Aid Berry Blue
2 Packs Kool Aid Cherry
8 Packs Kool Aid Grape

DyeBath 4:
1/4 Tsp Wilton's Gel Christmas Red
1/4 Tsp Wilton's Gel Buttercup Yellow
2 Packs Kool Aid Orange
5 Packs Kool Aid Pink Lemonade
3 Packs Cool Splashers Orange

TOLD YOU IT WAS CRAZY!

It should have been a gradual gradation/ombre from "dark to light to medium to light" but I ended up having to use different colors. Oops. See Lesson (2) as to why this happened. This is where I learned that I needed lots of dye and lots of water in each dyebath [and now know NOT to use vinegar until setting the dye at the end when trying to achieve a wicked gradient]. At this point I'm refilling dyebaths and contemplating adding another round of color to travel up the soaked yarn, but am anticipating the final result so much that I wish I were done already!

This is the final result. It truly does look more like hand painted yarn, but I think with practice I can get a fine ombre/gradient look, especially if I stick to 1-3 colors, with 2 mason jars per color. Still working on that aspect anyway. Very pretty huh! Lots of vinegar makes for VERY vibrant colors, tee hee. This is to make a scarf and hat for my Grandma D. Will post that soon!