The Dye Pot

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?

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