Monday, July 11, 2011

Dye your own yarn!

I learned a new way of dying yarn. Ive been spinning for years, but have never really done a whole lot of dying. All you need for this is food  color, of your choice, vinegar, and some wool (or 100% wool yarn) You can dye one its spun or before depending on how predictable you want your colors. (It still wont be extremely predictable)
I started with this, its a mohair blend I spun and made into a hank.
You will need a trash bag (it will come in handy trust me) and a tupperware container along with the vinegar and food color. Soak the yarn (or wool) in vinegar, just until its saturated.

I dripped the color randomly over the whole thing, flipped it over and did the other side. Then roll the yarn up in the trash bag, and roll it back and forth in order to dye the whole thing.
Here it is once its unrolled.

You may want gloves....
I put it back in the tupperware, covered it, and microwaved it for about a minute or two. Then gave it a cold water rinse. Then let it dry.
The colors were very variegated, but I think its beautiful.
Then I put it into a ball to ply it with a very nice grey angora yarn I'd already spun.





There it is all finished. Now to find a project for it....

Happy spinning.

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