The Dye Pot

Am I Blue?

Materials

Nomis Wolle, worsted weight - about 200 grams
PAAS Easter egg dye tablets: 4 blue, 4 purple
6 tbls citric acid crystals
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Am I Blue?

This time I increased the citric acid component - 3 tbls in the soak water and 3 tbls in the dye solution - and then followed the usual procedure. Soak the yarn, mix the dye, add dye to the water in the crock pot, place yarn in dye bath and turn heat to high. Cover and leave until dye is exhausted - about 3 hours in this case. Let yarn cool, wash, rinse, roll in towel and hang to dry.





Notes:

This is as close as I ever gotten to a real blue in any of my dyeing efforts. It's the kind of color I was hoping for last year when I was dying yarn for this shawl. It was also a surprise because I had been going for this colorway which I had reasonably duplicated here (scroll down a bit).

I used the same dyes in the same proportions and the same procedure. The difference was that I was using citric acid this time instead of vinegar and my best guess is that the pH of the dye bath was different - resulting in different colors coming to the fore.

It's a fascinating lesson on what happens under varying circumstances. I guess if I want to be able to reproduce colors, not only am I going to have to track dyes (types and amounts/proportions) but pH as well.

Where does a non-scientist obtain litmus paper?

Colored by Robbyn on 01/23 at 03:00 PM
(2) Comments • Permalink

Grasses

Materials

Nomis Wolle, worsted weight - about 100 grams
Knitpicks Peruvian Highland Bare, fingering weight - about 50 grams
PAAS Easter egg dye tablets: 5 green, 1 yellow
4 tbls citric acid crystals
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Grasses

Experimented just a bit with the citric acid crystals by adding 2 tbls to the soak water as well as 2 tbls to the dye solution - otherwise, pretty much standard procedure. Soak the yarn, mix the dye, add dye to the water in the crock pot, place yarn in dye bath and turn hat to high. Cover and leave until dye is exhausted - about 2 hours in this case. Let yarn cool, wash, rinse, roll in towel and hang to dry.





Notes:

This is the first time, dyeing something with a green component, that the dye completely exhausted. I assume that the citric acid (as it's the only thing I'm doing differently) is responsible but, as a friend quite correctly pointed out to me, it could be that the pH (level of acidity) is different and that different colors react in various ways to different pHs. Though the yarns are different, the end results were nearly identical. See this post (scroll down) for the result of another effort with these same two yarns and a different set of colors.





I had been hoping for something a bit more muted than this. I think that would have required a bit of red or orange which I didn't used in this lot. That said, the more I look at this fresh, springy color, the better I like it :) The swatch sample is from a hat I crocheted with this yarn. The hat has been frogged though, so I can use the yarn - and it's happy hue - elsewhere :)

Colored by Robbyn on 01/23 at 02:40 PM
(0) Comments • Permalink

Raspberry Fields Forever

Materials

Knitpicks Bare Peruvian Highland Wool, bulky weight. about 200 grams
PAAS Easter egg dye tablets: 4 red, 2 purple
2 tbls citric acid crystals
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Raspberry Fields Forever

Soaked the yarn for about twenty minutes in the crock pot in cold water. Added 2 tbls of citric acid crystals to a cup of cold water, stirring until everything was completely dissolved. Then I added the dye tablets - which fizzed so energetically that there was some over flow :) When the yarn was soaked through, I removed it from the crock (gently squeezing out as much of the water as I could) and set it aside. I added the dye to the water in the crock pot and stirred it up to make sure everything mixed well. Then I put the yarn into the dye path, covered the crock and set it to high. The dye was exhausted after about two hours, so I turned everything off, removed the lid to the pot and let it cool down. Standard wash (dish detergent) and rinses. Rolled the yarn in a towel and hung to dry in the kitchen window.





Notes:

This was the first time I had ever used citric acid. I had some available that I had obtained for on old experiment in bath bombs but hadn't used it as the acid of a dye bath. I couldn't figure out how much (or little) to use and so the jar sat there on my closet floor, getting dusty.

I finally did try it this time because I was rabid to dye and I had run out of white vinegar :)

Although the emphatic scent of vinegar doesn't bother me, I must say it was nice that the kitchen didn't smell like a pickle factory :) In fact the citric acid didn't seem to smell of anything at all - at least not to me - but I don't have the most sensitive nose in the world.

The dyeing went quickly - only took about 2 hours - and the color is good. There was some very slight crocking when I washed it, but by the final rinse, there wasn't any more color coming out of the yarn; I believe the color is fast at this point.

I think I will try using a little more citric acid for the next attempt (say, 3 tbls instead of 2) and see if that takes care of the fugitive color because, aside of that minor issue, things came out very well indeed.

Colored by Robbyn on 01/02 at 10:48 AM
(1) Comments • Permalink