Dyeing Part I

Want to know what I was doing the other day? I was dyeing a vat of handspun yarn because I was too lazy to dye the roving and spin it! I had quite a bit of white already spun up just didn't know what I was going to do with it.

So here for your viewing pleasure is how to dye yarn using easter egg dye. First take all the yarn, wind it up on your swift into hanks, tie it in four places so it doesn't tangle, and dump it in a sink of cold water:

This is too get excess air out and wet the fiber. I use ugly acrylic yarn to tie it up. Easy to find and I don't feel like I'm wasting it.

While letting the yarn soak, prepare the easter egg dyes. I use quart jars and an old canner. Into each jar I put 3 tablespoons of vinegar and a dye tablet and let the tablet dissolve.

As soon as the tablet is gone, I add about 1/2 cup more of vinegar to each jar and fill it half full of cold water. Stir a little and add yarn. Be sure to squeeze out as much excess water as possible before putting it in the jar. I've read you're only supposed to put about an ounce of yarn in each jar, but I have no idea how much that is and can't be bothered in the middle of a creative pursuit to figure it out. So I put in enough to fill up the jar but not overflow it. I then top it off with more cold water, and kind of slosh the wool up and down in the jar a little with a stainless steel knife to get it mixed evenly. Then I pop the jars into the canner:

I fill the canner with water up to the bottom ring of the jar neck, put on the canner lid, set the heat to medium and wait till it starts to steam. I let it steam about 20 minutes, taking care to turn it down so it doesn't boil. Boiling = felting = darn hard to knit!

While that's cooking, I take the last few skeins I've been saving and I do a hand dye batch. I make up another set of easter egg dyes in little cups. Same drill - 3 tablespoons of vinegar, one tablet, let the tablet dissolve (this is actually the directions on the easter egg box). Then I add the 1/2 cup of vinegar and paint the skein with the colors. Before:

And After:

These little guys are rolled up into sausages in plastic wrap so they don't leak. As soon as the jars in the canner are done, pull them out and put a rack across the bottom. Lay the sausage packs in the bottom and steam them for 20 minutes.

More fun to come tomorrow as we open the packets, drain the wool, and take a look at the outcomes. And always wear gloves!