Dyeing: My sojurn into overdyeing...

...because for some reason I had six skeins of Knitpicks Lace Weight Gossamer in Caribbean. It's lovely, but when I knit it up, the yellow was just so obvious it distressed me. So, I had dye, I was jumping into it.... let's try to change it a bit. Here is the original yarn, 3 skeins. Rather, 1 skein and 2 balls, leaving 3 skeins untouched, you know, in case!




And here is what I did: Heated up the yarn in the crockpot with the water, swished it around (boo, hiss, it's merino and it felted a little bit), then lifted it all out, and thinking that some warm colors would be gorgeous and it being yellow and green/blue, add.... red!

Added 1/2 Tsp Jacquard Scarlet

I let the yarn sit, swished some more (more boo's!), added 1/4 cup vinegar, swished some more. Geesh, I know already. Let it sit for an hour or so, turned the crock off, and let cool down. Rinse in a vinegar wash, and voila:



Very beautiful. And happily, it all pulled apart. I haven't re-wound yet since I have no need for it, but the colors are absolutely stunning. A little shrunken, but still absolutely usable and just lovely. Now I want to use it!

I have so much more to dye, but I must knit and I must sew and I must make jewelry. Will probably return to dyeing in about two weeks. Already excited!

Dyeing: Attempt #3

This one being for my Grandma A, a HUGE Green Bay Packers fan. Made my color choices quite obvious for her, for even in green and yellow can fine feminine pieces be knit from!

Same start as all the others - 660 yards of Knitpicks Worsted Weight superwash wool, joined end to end and made into about a 10' diameter skein for dyeing.


My goal: Green Bay Packer, the football team, colors. Green and Yellow. Much more simple than the things I was attempting right out of the dyeing gate. I figured I would put half the yarn in each crock and pull it out so that the darkest section of each color created a nice gradient as it got lighter as it wicked towards the other color.

So I presoaked the yarn in water ONLY, with a squirt of 7th Generation Free & Clear dish detergent - another tip I read online.

In an effort to be more scientific, I actually measured what I put into each crock to see if the amount of water affected the dye uptake since I have two different sized crocks.

Lg Crock - 5 qts of water
Sm Crock - 3 qts of water

Turned on the heat, and DID NOT heat the yarn with the dye. Don't know why but figured I'd try something new. It IS superwash wool after all. At 150 degrees, I added the dyes directly to the crocks

Lg Crock - 1/2 Tsp Wilton's Lemon Yellow
- 1/2 Tsp Wilton's Buttercup Yellow
Sm Crock - 1/2 Tsp Wilton's Juniper Green
- 3 Packets Kool-Aid Lemon-Lime

I did not add ANY vinegar to the dyebaths. Then I added the yarn. WOW - I have found, in this instance anyway, that yellow dye travels fast. Or maybe greens in general travel very, very slowly.

My colors came out completely as planned - ended up having to get the mason jars for the sections I pulled out to help with the wicking and control moisture flow. Also learned I have to turn the yarn where it touches the edge of the very warm/hot crock pot so that the dye would wick more evenly. I'll probably have to find a way to keep the yarn from touching the crock edge eventually - seems to heat set that section.


When the dye seemed to be gone (still working on figuring out that aspect since I sincerely believe that I am using FAR to much dye), I took the yarn out and rinsed it in two different warm vinegar baths. After the first rinsing, not much color came out with the next two rinsings.

I got some banding, partly from some of the ties being tied too tight, and partly from the heated edge of the crock pot I mentioned earlier. Here is the skein drying


And here is the result after it is re-skeined. I'm in love! I'm not a fan of yellow, but it is quite, quite lovely in person.


Soon, it will be a hat and scarf for my wonderful Grandma A. The end result of that, too will be shown soon - Grandparent's day is September 9th and I want to have the hats finished by then, and the matching scarves for Christmas. How exciting!

Dyeing: My second attempt - happy mistakes

This yarn is for my Grandpa A. 3 Skeins of Knitpicks Superwash Merino Worsted Weight, tied end to end for one large skein, 10' in stretched diameter, 660 yards total.



Goal: Navy, Maroon, and Gray gradient. Main colors to be the navy and gray, with a maroon "stripe".

Soaked yarn fully submerged in water with 1/4 cup vinegar for 10 hours (oops, fell asleep with my child!). This time I set up my dyes a little differently - but still not correctly, I know that now, yet another lesson!

Crock 1:
1-1/2 Tsp Jacquard Acid Dye Navy

Crock 2:
1-1/2 Tsp Jacquard Acid Dye Gunmetal

Mason Jar:
1/2 Tsp Jacquard Acid Dye Vermilion

This is a picture of the dye process beginning:




The result was LOTS of navy! The Gunmetal didn't "take" - partly, I'm guessing, because I didn't wash, I just rinsed everything out, I think there was some dye contamination from my first attempt. My questions now are perhaps there is no need for vinegar in the soak? Color still had a hard time wicking, though not as much as attempt #1.

I also think the water may not be hot enough when I add the dyes. There was some powder residue at the bottom of the crock. Not sure if this is normal or not. I am thinking perhaps the yarn must be heated in plain water, spoon some water out, mix the dye in a shakeable lidded jar, lift yarn, add dye, stir water, put yarn back in. Also, perhaps zero need to pre-soak with vinegar? Perhaps put in with the dyes? I don't know quite yet.

Hmmm, the vinegar in the presoak may also be a part of why the yarn took the blue from the dye rather than the gray. When I mixed the dye in the water, it took on an eggplant/navy hue, settling into a dark gray after a few minutes. Maybe the vinegar'd yarn sucked the blue out before it could "take" the gray? Just recalling what happened before where ALL the dye was sucked to the yarn with the large amount of vinegar I presoaked in.

So, the end result of two hues of navy, one denim, one midnight, are quite attractive, and the white between the blues and red is nice - goes well with my adjusted patriotic theme for Grandpa A.



And a photo of the three skeins re-skeined into usable skeins. It is much more blue than the photo allows for, having been washed out by the flash. Off to find a hat and scarf pattern for Grandpa A, which, of course, will be posted!



Now, on to dyeing attempt 3!

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!