YARN DYEING 101 - KOOL AID

[umheried]

I LOVE THE FINISHED COLOUR.  THAT DEEP RED IS MUCH NICER THAN THE ORIGINAL.

[litlnemo]

Thank you! It was a gamble, though. I did test with strands of yarn before I dyed the whole thing, at least. But I knew I might not be happy with the results. Luckily it worked pretty well.

It would have been better to dye the yarn before knitting it, of course! 

[peariso]

I need to know what i'm doing wrong when it comes to the Wilton dyes.    

I have soaked my wool with viniger for at least 20mins.  I have made sure that there was A LOT of viniger in the water/dye mixture and I actually boil it all until i get the colour i like.

 But the dye never seems to set and when i'm mixing it in the beginning it is like mixing oil and water.  It is very separatey (K i just made that one up)  Then it bleeds for ever.  Even when i'm knitting with it, it stains my hands and feels almost greasy.

I have washed my fo but i'm just worried that my brother will have blue feet/carpets...

Thanks so much guys

[Dulcinea]

You may have had too much vinegar

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=102434.msg999545#msg999545

[peariso]

I never would have thought of that.  I was always under the assumption that the more the better.  Thank you for pointing me to that Dulcinea.

[Dulcinea]

SEARCH is your friend!

Seriously, any questions you may have, always go there first - you can probably find the answers, and it'll be faster than waiting for someone to reply with an answer to your question 

[meilynne]

After many frustrations with hot pink pots, spoons, wash water, and eventually fading pink yarn, I finally figured out how to dye with that tricky red #3 - a beautiful bright watermelon pink that also makes the violet lovely as well.

It's all because red #3 dyes at a lower acidity than the rest of the colors, so here's how I did it....

I added a washed & soaked skein of Paton's Classic Merino to a 4 qt. pot filled with 3 qts. of cool water w/ 1 tsp of Wilton's violet (red #3 & blue #1) dissolved in it. Hint: Wilton dissolves faster in a little hot water, then add to the dyepot.

I started with 2 tbsp of vinegar, and heated to almost boiling, then turned it down to the lowest temp, just below simmer. I let that sit for about 30 minutes, then the water turned blue as the red absorbed, but the blue didn't. Then every 20 minutes or so, I added 2 more tbsp of vinegar, until I was up to 10 tbsp, when the water finally turned clear as the blue completely absorbed.

I let the whole thing cool overnight in the pot - I hear that makes the dye set better. I washed and rinsed the whole thing the next morning, and though the yarn was slightly varigated with different hues of purple, not a speck of pink residue was left behind.

HTH,
Mei in AR

[hoxierice]

Really pretty!

[Dulcinea]

BOY, is that pretty!

Nicely done!

[Boffcat]

Ohh, that's a gorgeous purple!

I'm thinking of buying a big batch of natural, undyed hemp yarn - does anyone know if hemp would take well to any of the dying techniques used in this thread? I'd be most likely to go down the food colouring route, as we don't have kool aid here. And is it daft to try dying a reeeaally big skein (about 1,000 yards)? Would I be better off seperating it into more manageable amounts? Any help would be very much appreciated!

(Apologies if something similar's been asked before; I had a quick skim through and couldn't find anything.)