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Working part time in a craft store is not helping me keep my half assed attempts at acquiring new hobbies under control. Nor is it helping me keep my yarn stash to a reasonable size. (I only buy it if it's on clearance! >.>)
Some time last summer, in a fit of sleep deprived madness, I bought half a pound of wool roving and attempted to spin it into something. I got through about half of it on my bootleg dowel spindle before I gave up- I either need someone to teach me to do it properly or try it on a real spindle, because it made my wrists weep bitter tears of repetitive stress ache. I did manage to produce something that resembled yarn, though. It sat in the basement until today, when I finally got off my butt to do something with it.
It turns out that animal fibers dye really well with food coloring- and not just food coloring, but icing dye, Easter egg dye, and kool aid. Yes. Kool aid. I used Easter egg dyes for my first attempts, though, because I didn't want the whole kitchen smelling like nauseating purple.
My stovetop exploits (the colors are a bit brighter in real life; the lighting in my bathroom is awful):
I would've done these in the crockpot, except I can't find mine. It'll turn up eventually, I'm sure. As you can see from the pictures, there are places where the dye didn't take evenly, and white spots where I had the skein tied up. I expected the teal one to come out a bit bluer, and the green one looked positively disgusting in the pot, so I guess it goes to show that you can't really tell what something's going to look like until it's done. I would've liked a truly blue yarn, though; I have some pretty lampwork beads that I need to do something with, and knotting them on pretty yarn would've been perfect. The green one is dyed with 2 blue Easter egg tablets and 1 green, plus 3 tablespoons vinegar and 1.5 cups of water- the green is really, really overpowering. The blue one was 1 blue tablet and the remainder of the blue and green solution, which is why it came out more teal-y than turquoise. I also didn't use all of the blue, and I probably should have.
This one was done in the oven- first it was spread out on the plastic wrap and "painted" with the dye, then it was wrapped up, then wrapped in tinfoil, put in a baking dish, and baked at 240 for an hour and a half. Pouring the concentrated dye on chunks of yarn allowed for a more uniform absorption than the stovetop method, and it let me get that lovely gradient. Those colors are 1 orange Easter egg dye tablet; 1 yellow Easter egg dye tablet, plus two drops of yellow McCormick's food coloring and an Earl Grey teabag (I was afraid the egg dye was going to be too radioactive when I saw it on the yarn- the brightest section was done with just the egg dye); and 2 red Easter egg dye tablets plus four or five drops of red mcCormick's food coloring. One tablespoon of vinegar per dye tablet, and around a cup of water. I had a lot of dye left over- there really isn't very much yarn there, maybe fifteen or twenty yards, so it's not like I needed that much dye.
The hand painted method is potentially a lot messier- I had newspapers spread all around, and kept a roll of paper towels on hand to soak up the spills. But it did come out beautifully on the first try; my stovetop technique needs a little work, but that's okay. Doing this was really a lot of fun- time consuming, but fun. I still have four ounces of roving left, so I've got stuff to play with if I want to do this again.
Some time last summer, in a fit of sleep deprived madness, I bought half a pound of wool roving and attempted to spin it into something. I got through about half of it on my bootleg dowel spindle before I gave up- I either need someone to teach me to do it properly or try it on a real spindle, because it made my wrists weep bitter tears of repetitive stress ache. I did manage to produce something that resembled yarn, though. It sat in the basement until today, when I finally got off my butt to do something with it.
It turns out that animal fibers dye really well with food coloring- and not just food coloring, but icing dye, Easter egg dye, and kool aid. Yes. Kool aid. I used Easter egg dyes for my first attempts, though, because I didn't want the whole kitchen smelling like nauseating purple.
My stovetop exploits (the colors are a bit brighter in real life; the lighting in my bathroom is awful):
I would've done these in the crockpot, except I can't find mine. It'll turn up eventually, I'm sure. As you can see from the pictures, there are places where the dye didn't take evenly, and white spots where I had the skein tied up. I expected the teal one to come out a bit bluer, and the green one looked positively disgusting in the pot, so I guess it goes to show that you can't really tell what something's going to look like until it's done. I would've liked a truly blue yarn, though; I have some pretty lampwork beads that I need to do something with, and knotting them on pretty yarn would've been perfect. The green one is dyed with 2 blue Easter egg tablets and 1 green, plus 3 tablespoons vinegar and 1.5 cups of water- the green is really, really overpowering. The blue one was 1 blue tablet and the remainder of the blue and green solution, which is why it came out more teal-y than turquoise. I also didn't use all of the blue, and I probably should have.
This one was done in the oven- first it was spread out on the plastic wrap and "painted" with the dye, then it was wrapped up, then wrapped in tinfoil, put in a baking dish, and baked at 240 for an hour and a half. Pouring the concentrated dye on chunks of yarn allowed for a more uniform absorption than the stovetop method, and it let me get that lovely gradient. Those colors are 1 orange Easter egg dye tablet; 1 yellow Easter egg dye tablet, plus two drops of yellow McCormick's food coloring and an Earl Grey teabag (I was afraid the egg dye was going to be too radioactive when I saw it on the yarn- the brightest section was done with just the egg dye); and 2 red Easter egg dye tablets plus four or five drops of red mcCormick's food coloring. One tablespoon of vinegar per dye tablet, and around a cup of water. I had a lot of dye left over- there really isn't very much yarn there, maybe fifteen or twenty yards, so it's not like I needed that much dye.
The hand painted method is potentially a lot messier- I had newspapers spread all around, and kept a roll of paper towels on hand to soak up the spills. But it did come out beautifully on the first try; my stovetop technique needs a little work, but that's okay. Doing this was really a lot of fun- time consuming, but fun. I still have four ounces of roving left, so I've got stuff to play with if I want to do this again.
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That orange to yellow gradient one is so lovely. I can't wait to see how it knits up.
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