Friday, March 22, 2013

Easter Egg Dyed Yarn


So...I have a crochet project for my daughter for Easter I need to finish, but I ran out of the color yarn I use for it. The yarn I'm using I had originally dyed with Easter Egg dyes, so I hauled out my dyeing pot and set to work.
My dye pot. It holds 21 quarts? or maybe it's cups? of liquid. It's spackle ware from Walmart.

The original yarn was dyed using the blue, yellow and green dyes left over from dyeing eggs. I just threw it all into the pot at the time. This time, I was more "sciency". I used three of the dark green (Paas calls it "teal") and three of the yellow dye tablets. For those of you keeping score at home, yes, I had to use THREE dye kits.
The dye kit, one of them, anyway.
Dye tablets. These are the ones I did NOT use.
 I dissolved the yellow and the teal tablets separately in 1/4 cup of white vinegar (each). I mixed them together when they had dissolved. I added enough water to make 8 cups and put that into my pot.I added about 2 1/2 gallons more water and added the yarn. I'm using KnitPicks' Bare Merino Wool DK. I turned on the heat and let the water heat up to a simmer. It took about an hour to get up to that point. I turned off the heat and let the yarn sit for about 2 or 3 hours to absorb the rest of the dye and cool down to where it could be handled.
The yarn in the dye pot!

After the yarn had cooled, I rinsed it in the sink with a little Dawn dish soap. Then I spun it in my washing machine to get rid of the excess water. I've hung it out on the back porch to dry.
My yarn! Yaaay! Isn't it pretty?

No comments: