The Dye Pot

Silver Mauve

Materials

Approximately 3.5 ounces KFI Cashmerino (55% merino wool, 33% microfiber, 12% cashmere)
PAAS dye tablets: 2.5 violet, 1 red
White vinegar
Water

Method

Crock pot

Colorfast?

Yes

Color name

Silver Mauve

Washed the yarn in tepid water and dish detergent, dissolved the dye in vinegar and water, poured dye bath into the crock pot and put yarn in dye bath. Initially I set the pot to low because of the microfiber content (more about that below, in the notes) but turned it to high after about 20 minutes. The dye took about 2 hours to exhaust. The crock pot was turned off and the yarn left to cool. Then the yarn was rinsed thoroughly and hung to dry.






This was an overdye of a color that I liked at first but came to dislike over time. It was a very pale orchid and I finally decided there was no harm in dyeing it to see what happened.





The fly in the ointment, if there was one, was the microfiber. Having never dyed it before I had no idea what to expect. This, to me, is a real problem with yarn labeling. The word microfiber describes a yarn which is the result of a specific production method and which is less than 1.0 denier (the weight in grams of a 9000 meter length of the fiber). For example, the yarn in a nylon stocking maybe 10 - 15 denier and consist of 3 or 4 plys. A 15 denier strand of microfiber would be made up of somewhere around 30 filaments of microfiber. This is part of the reason microfiber is so soft. (See this article, Microfibers: Functional Beauty, for more information on microfiber.)

The problem comes in - at least for a would-be dyer - when something is labeled simply microfiber without any further clarification as to what the actual fiber content is. It will be synthetic, or at least synthetically produced (like rayon, for example) and is usually polyester or nylon, sometimes acrylic. Polyester and acrylic won't dye the way wool will - but nylon will so knowing the fiber content is critical. Some ball bands will say "Nylon microfiber" or "Acrylic microfiber" but many just say "microfiber" so dyeing such yarn is a bit of a crap shoot.






Notes: I knew going in that there was a risk involved as I didn't know what the microfiber part of the yarn actually was. I gambled that there was a pretty good chance that it was nylon which would take the dye pretty much as well as the wool and cashmere components did.

And the yarn did take the dye but the final color is much lighter than the dye bath was. The bath was a strong, deep grape color (graple, Myria called it) but the yarn is significantly lighter than that - more like a lilac than a grape :) - with occasional segues into and out of pale gray. I had thought the microfiber content was likely nylon, but I'm not sure that's the case. All the same, the yarn is interesting and certainly useable :)

A final note about the Cashmerino...

The yarn is extremely soft and while much of it had been rolled, used and frogged, it all sprang back to its original form during the dyeing so it is also quite resilient. And while the cashmere content might make you think this is too luxurious for ordinary projects, it is easily washable and so relatively easy care. But save it for things that benefit from the extreme softness or that need especial drape. Body isn't it's best quality :)

Posted by Robbyn on 03/18 at 03:41 PM