The Dye Pot

Tea Rose

Materials

100 grams fingering weight merino (Knitpicks undyed)
PAAS Easter egg dye: 3 tablets of red, 1 of violet
White vinegar
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Tea Rose

No detergent or salt were used this time.  The yarn was soaked in tepid water, but not washed, and placed in the crock pot.

About 3/4 cup of vinegar was put into a clear bowl and the dye tablets were added.  You should see this stuff dissolving - it actually fumes and it can make quite a bit of noise too :)  Then water was added and the whole poured into the crock pot.  Stirred things around (carefully!) with my trusty wooden spoon, turned the pot to low and went away for about three hours.

When the dye was exhausted, I let the yarn cool, washed it, squeezed it in a towel and hung it to dry.

This is slated for socks which will be pure luxury given how soft this yarn is!  The swatch was worked on size 2 (US) needles.

Notes:  As with the first merino (the Turquish Delight), there was some slight felting.  What I don’t know is if that’s particular to merino in general, or only to this merino.  In any case, it wasn’t a problem and I consider this my first real success.  This yarn is breath-takingly beautiful and always makes me think that this is what roses would look like if they were made of wool.  I hope very much to be able to duplicate this and try not to obssess too much about whether that’s a reasonable possibility :)

Colored by Robbyn on 05/31 at 01:01 AM
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Plums

Materials

About 3 ounces aran weight, undyed wool (Lionbrand Fisherman’s Wool)
Kool-aid packets: 2 black cherry, 1 grape
White vinegar
Table salt
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Plums

The yarn was washed in tepid water and dish detergent.  It was not rinsed before putting it into the crock pot.

I poured the vinegar (about a half cup - I had read that Kool-aid dyeing didn’t require additional acid to work well, but I didn’t want to take any chances - the vinegar wouldn’t hurt the yarn or impair the process and it doesn’t cost squat!) into another glass bowl and added the Kool-aid and about a tablespoonful of table salt (not iodized).  When everything was dissolved, I added water and poured it over the yarn in the crock pot, set the pot on low and let it go.  As seems to be about the usual, it took about three hours for the dye to exhaust after which he crock pot was turned off and the yarn allowed to cool.  It was then washed, rinsed, folded in a towel to draw out as much moisture as possible and hung up to dry. 

The yarn was wound and promptly made into a baby hat which was worked on size 8 (US) needles.

Notes:  This wool did not felt in the slightest though the treatment it received was no different than the merinos.  Before the final washing (which was done with a shampoo/conditioner all-in-one sort of deal) it was a bit rough.  The shampoo/conditioner treatment did soften it up a bit.  I was surprised to note that the yarn lost none of its loft - for lack of a better term - during all the washing and dying.  I had, I guess, expected it to compress a little and it didn’t.  Pretty good performance for a dirt-cheap wool :)

Oh - and, as Uncle would say, One more thing…  I did not notice much difference in the eveness of the dyeing despite the addition of a little dish soap and some salt.  I had read that each of these items would help make the dye “take” in a more uniform fashion.  I still got a reasonable base tone with slight lighter and darkers variations.  S’cool; I like the way that looks!

About two-thirds of the way through the process I checked the dyebath and found that the water was green.  From Black Cherry and Grape?  Hunh!  I considered removing the yarn at that point which might have yeilded a truer red/violet but I decided to let things run their course and left it alone.  Does that indicate that the red and blue tones were taken up faster than the green ones?

Colored by Robbyn on 05/30 at 12:25 AM
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Turquish Delight

This was the first adventure :)  I had the dye (PAAS Easter egg dye tablets) and the yarn - had had them for some time.  It took a while to gel in my head, but I finally got up one day (almost literally!) and thought: Today we dye!

Materials

100 grams fingering weight merino wool (Knitpicks, undyed)
PAAS dye tablets: 3 blue, 1 green
White vinegar
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Turquish Delight

Nothing mysterious or involved here - I didn’t even wash the yarn this first time.  I just set it in a large glass bowl of tepid water to soak for about an hour.  Then the yarn and the water went into the crock pot.

I poured the vinegar into another glass bowl and added the dye tablets.  When they had dissolved, I added what I thought was enough water (it was a guesstimate) to cover the yarn, gave it a few stirs with my handy, dandy wooden spoon and poured it in with the yarn.  There were a few more stirs and gentle proddings to make sure all the yarn was exposed to the dye.  Then the lid went on and the pot was set to low.

I intended to leave it until I was sure the yarn had taken up all the dye it could and that took about three hours.  I turned the crock pot off and left everything to cool after which it was washed, rinsed and hung to dry.

The yarn was wound and is awaiting the right project :)  Swatch was worked on size 3 (US) needles.

Notes:  Despite what I felt was adequate care in handling and temperature control, the yarn fulled slightly - just enough to be slightly sticky when I was unwinding the skein after it had dried.  Maybe this is typical of merino wool?

Colored by Robbyn on 05/26 at 10:40 PM
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