The Dye Pot

Purple Haze

I had four balls of this mohair.  Normally I like pinks, especially light pinks.  But this yarn has a slightly grey component.  Not enough to actually show, but enough to make the yarn look like it had been rolled in the dust - dirty, in other words.  I kept trying to persuade myself that the predominant pink overrode it and that it would be just fine.  Unfortunately, the more I looked at it, the less I liked it.  Besides - I hadn’t tried dyeing mohair before and it was high time to give it a try :)

Materials

Just over 3.5 oz of Classic Elite La Gran mohair - pale grey-pink
Easter egg dye tablets: 1 blue, 2 violet
Kool-aid: 1 packet black cherry
White vinegar
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Purple Heather

I washed this yarn in dish detergent and did not rinse it before putting into the crock.  The dye was dissolved in about a cup of vinegar (give or take an ounce or two).  Water was then added, after the dye was completely dissolved, to make a solution that would cover the yarn and this was poured into the crock.  Things were stirred gently and then the crock was turned on low for about three and a half hours - until the dye was exhausted.

I had read many times that mohair dyes beautifully and was curious to see what would happen.  I was also wondering if I would be able to re-wind it after it had come out of the bath and been washed and dried.  As it happens, this wasn’t a serious chore.  However, while there wasn’t any felting (that I could determine) there was some matting as the mohair fibers are fairly long and do entangle with one another despite all precautions.  Gentle persuasion was all that was required to pull them apart.

There isn’t a swatch of this yet as it is earmarked for my mohair blanket and I don’t want to use any of it up before that’s done.  Because…well…you never know :)  But, when I have worked some of it up, I will add a picture to this post.

Notes: 
The process went easily and the yarn took the dye beautifully.  Again, I wound up with the striations that seem to be the hallmark of hand-dyed yarn and it took me a while to get used to the appearance.  This looked very dark coming out of the crock pot but lightened considerably (more than I would have expected) upon drying.  Initially I didn’t think much of this color, but the more I look at it, the more depth it seems to have and the better-looking it seems to me.  It will be a wonderful addition to the blanket and I’m seriously considering dyeing the other two balls of this stuff with oranges and yellows.  That should produce an interesting effect over the pink and will provide more fodder for the blanket.

Also, when I did a progress check about half-way through the dye time, I observed that the red and blue tones of the dye had been pretty much taken up by the yarn but that there was still a green component in the water.  I saw this phenomena before when I used black cherry Kool-aid to dye with and it’s something to bear in mind in the future.  While there are no greens obvious in the finished yarn, presumably it had a muting effect and green is not a color I often want to combine with…well…much of anything, let alone reds and purples :)

Posted by Robbyn on 08/09 at 10:14 AM