I'm dyeing yarn!

Inspired by Elemmaciltur's successful dyeing experience I decided that now was the time to finally give kettly dyeing a try. Why kettle dyeing? Because I've had an eye on the gorgeous yarn at handpaintedyarn.com for a while (I'm probably going to place an order there soon...). I've seen people knit really nice things with it, like here or here. It's multicolored yarn, but I like it. :)

I did basically the same as Elemmaciltur, except that I soaked the yarn for maybe an hour and not a day (I also used way way way less vinegar ;)). As I felt self-confident enough to have remembered everything necessary about the dyeing process I didn't bother to take one last look at the website before starting (great idea), so I didn't cook it for an hour, instead I just waited till I had added the last colors and the water was clear, then took the pot off the stove to let it cool. I also found a thermometer to measure the temperature of the water and to adjust the temperature of my colors to ensure that adding the colors would not cause a significant change of temperature in the water thereby causing the yarn to felt.

I made different mixtures with the red food coloring in various concentration. To get a darker red I added a bit of blue. The colors were a nice dark red/dark pink/light pink in the pot, but washing turned them all into various shades of lobster red. There are also many white spots where the dye didn't penetrate the masses of yarn.



It's a very very bright green... The funny thing is I just wasn't able mix a light green. I added three drops of blue food coloring to a cup with water and vinegar and one drop of yellow. Then I added many many more drops of yellow and it was still the same color (a very nice woodruff color, by the way). Anyway, as you can see, in the end the yarn turned a very bright yellowish green.




Yarn: 4-ply sock yarn by Wolle Rödel, 420 m/100 g
Color: white
Amount: 100 g


Yarn: Rheumawolle by Wolle Rödel, 280 m/50 g
Color: white
Amount: 50 g

I used sugarfree food coloring (I got told that it's important that the food colorings be sugarfree otherwise it won't work. I had once tried to dye yarn with something similar to Kool Aid, but it contained sugar and it didn't work out well. Probably also because I hadn't been aware then that I might have to set the color with vinegar.).

I would have prefered different colors, but these look ok, too. Next time I might try to get my hands on some dye for Easter eggs. I wonder if they still sell them at this time of the year.