While Walking My Dogs

So I had planned to post my yarn dyeing adventures yesterday, but it literally took me ALL day to prep the yarn.  And by prep I mean taking 100g hanks of sock weight yarn and breaking them into 50g hanks.  Simple, right?  Not so  much.  I used my swift to wind up half of each skein but somewhere along the way, things got a big tangled and I spent most of yesterday untangling yarn!!!!!  And I didn’t want to bore you with that disaster.  Finally I had 8 50g hanks and was able to set them up to soak overnight so I could hit the ground running today with the fun part. The dyeing!!!

I had dyed yarn in the past with Kool Aid, but today I wanted to experiment with food color paste as well as Jacquard acid dyes.  I also wanted to try different heating options: microwave, steam and immersion.  I watched several YouTube videos: one from Carie of the Creative Obsession and several from Rebecca of ChemKnits.  All the yarn I used was Cloudborn Fibers Merino Superwash Sock Twist (80% SW Merino Wool/20% Polyamide).

Here are the results:

These two skeins (left) were dyed in the same bath using Jacquard dye and the stove top heat method.

For this speckled skein (right), I pre-mixed Kool Aid and applied the color sporadically.  I heat set the dye using steam.

This skein (left) was made using pre-mixed Kool-Aid, but for the yellow color, I added McCormick yellow food coloring to make the color more vibrant.  I heat set this using steam.

This skein (right) was a combination of pre-mixed Lime Kool Aid and pre-mixed Wilton Violet food color paste.  This was also heat set with steam.

For this skein (left) I used a pre-mixed Wilton Violet food color paste applied with a plastic fork and then dipped the fork into powdered Berry Wild Kool-Aid to achieve the reddish/pink color.  I set this with microwave heat.

This skein (right) was a combination of the yellow pre-mixed Kool Aid/food coloring and Wilton Violet food color paste.  This was set with steam.

Finally for the last skein (left) I used the stove-top method and added Jacquard dyes directly onto the fiber.

All in all, I’m so happy with all the results.  I do like the steam heating setting method as well as the stove top method although it’s a little harder to control the color with the stove top.  For tonal and solid colors, the stove top is excellent, but for speckled or striped effects, I prefer heat setting with steam.  I wasn’t crazy about heat setting with the microwave.

Now, what will I knit with all this gorgeousness?????

Until tomorrow,

So this is how I spent my day.