Hand Dyed Yarn

With all this left over Easter egg dye, I couldn't just dump it!



I dug out a skein of white wool yarn and un-skeined it (is that a word?)




Tied it loosely




dipped each "corner" in one of the primary colors and microwaved for a minute, rested for about 5 minutes, and then microwaved another minute




primary colors done




dipped remaining white areas in the secondary colors




Isn't it beautiful??



Hung to dry

since I still had dye left, I did my last skein of white wool, too!

I don't know for sure what I'll use the yarn for since I hope that I don't have to make any more wool pants!

Easter Egg Dyed Shorties

I knit some shorties using the yarn that I dyed with Easter Egg dye. I was going for red, white, and blue, but when I dyed it, there looked like there would be quite a bit of purple, too. When I knit it up, though, there is only a few stiches here and there that are purple. Of course, there is only about as much white, too! Over all they turned out nice, but I think I will still try for a more traditional colored red, white, and blue yarn!







Front















Back














William wearing the shorts.














The shorts also fit Emily (2 years old and 23 pounds)

















While I was doing the cast off on the last leg, Sarah took my needle and was "knitting". What she ended up doing was sewing the shorts closed with the circular needle!












Front side

Back side

Dyeing Wool With Easter Egg Dye

With all the Easter egg dyeing kits left over after Easter, I decided to use some to try my hand at dyeing wool yarn.


I decided to try using the microwave for dyeing this time.

I didn't want to have to unwind the skein and then rewind later, so I decide to try dyeing it as it came from the store!











I soaked the yarn in water with a drop of dish detergent for 30 minutes, then rinsed it out.














I put the dye pellet in 3 tablespoons of vinegar.
















I wanted to do red, white, and blue yarn, so I did red and blue dye.
















After the dye pellets had dissolved, I added ½ cup of water to each cup.













I poured the blue dye on one end and the red on the other.









Next, I cooked the yarn in the microwave on high for 2 minutes and then let it cool for 2 minutes. I repeated this again.











On the bottom, the blue and red had run together, so instead of red, white, and blue, I had red, purple, and blue. So I decided to flip the yarn over to get the white dyed, too. I cooked and rested 2 more times.














Here is the top side.












Here is the bottom side.

My "Swift"

When ever I needed to roll up a skein/hank of yarn after dyeing it or from Purewool, I had to find something (or someone) to hold my yarn. I tried several different methods before I found the one that works the best...






the car seat handle!







It is the right size to fit the skeins of Purewool and if I prop it up against the footstool, I don't have to work too hard to get it to unwind.

Of course, a REAL swift would be even easier and I'm still hoping to make one, but in the meantime, this gets the job done!





Sitting next to the yarn in the seat of the carseat, is my "ball winder". I first wrap the yarn around a book a few times, then I slide it off and "sandwich" it between the handles of two flat wooden spatulas. Then I wind the yarn around the handles to make the ball. When I'm done with the ball, I pull the spatulas out one at a time. And Presto, a center pull ball!

Kiddos and Kool-Aid Dyeing

We were at Grandma's and decided to try some more Kool-Aid dyeing. We started with about 4 ounces of a dark greenish yarn to see what that would end up with.



Here are my lovely assistants holding the undyed yarn.















Here we're adding the 3 cups of water and 1 cup of vinegar to a large zippy bag.











Next came 4 packages of Kool-Aid.












Mix it all up!




Emily is having a ball!!













The yarn is in the bag with the dye now.











Putting the yarn outside on the cement to "cook".

Closeup showing the yarn in the bag with the dye mixture.

Yarn #2 all done! We left it outside for almost 3 hours.

This is our finished yarn with the beginning colored yarn on top. It ended up browner than we expected. We were thinking more of a cranberry color.

This is the natural color of the yarn we used for our 3rd attempt.

This is the dye all ready. This time we only used 1½ cups of water and ½ cup of vinegar and 2 packages of Kool-Aid. (that was all we had in blue and Sarah requested blue!)

We decided that the dye mixture stayed around the yarn better when the bags were hanging.

Here's the finished yarn for attempt number 3! This one "cooked" for about 2½ hours.

This is the closeup with the natural color on top.

Emily was very interested in my attempts to take a picture of the finished yarn. She kept trying to use the towel to wrap up a doll! (you can see Kimberly's feet in the lower left corner)

Here are all 3 of our yarns laid out next to each other.

Kool-Aid Dyeing

I had been reading about dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid and my mom had some wool yarn, so I got about 8 ounces from her and gave it a try! I've never dyed anything before (other than tie-dye with RIT) so it was a new experience, but fun!

This is the yarn soaking in cool water prior to the dyeing process.

This is the dye in the slow cooker waiting for the yarn. I used 6 cups of water, 2 cups of vinegar and 8 packets of Kool-Aid.

Here the yarn is in the dye just starting the dyeing process.

I cooked the yarn and dye on low setting for 3 hours until the water was clear.

The yarn is all done!

Even though my ties were very loose, I still ended up with a small undyed area.