So I finally got my act together and took pictures of my newly dyed yarn, but before getting to see those, you have to sit through my diatribe on my dyeing methods :-P
So far when dyeing yarn, I like to do immersion dyeing on the stovetop because it’s easy to control the color and not very messy. But the problem I seem to run into is the tradeoff between tieing the yarn after it’s been wrapped on the warping board, and achieving even dyeing results. After a few incidents involving tangling (which we will not speak of), I became ultra paranoid and started wrapping each subskein with about 85 ties to make sure they stayed in place. Well this leads to the dye not absorbing evenly because the yarn isn’t left to flow freely in the dye solution, so sometimes the areas under the ties even stay white. I have yet to come up with the perfect solution, but I have a few ideas and have reached somewhat of a compromise.
cooking up some yarn
I got the best results when I tied the yarn in less places and very loosely. Then after it’s rinsed, I straightened out each subskein and tied the crap out of it. This helped with getting the dry yarn arranged on the warping board for winding. That’s my solution so far…but do you have any experience or advice that you’d like to pass along? Leave a comment and let me know.
So without further ado, I present my latest colorways!
First up is Tie-Dyed, which is literally named because this is the first skein I dyed, and the ties were way too tight. I dyed it in a deep purple, green and blue, but the sections where the cotton ties were didn’t really dye at all. I was somewhat saddened about this, until I realized that it actually looked pretty cool. Mom said that it reminded her of a Tie-Dye T-Shirt, so the name stuck!
tie-dyed, with a wonderful frosty perry cider, ahhh.
Then we have **New Mexico Sunset**, which is my absolute favorite of this dyeing session. I used Burnt Orange, Aztec Gold and Fire Red together to create a very brilliant skein that reminds me of our gorgeous sunsets here in NM. It wasn’t until later that I realized that I subconsciously dyed the skein of yarn that I
hinted Scout about a few months ago. I had said I’d love a skein that looked like the NM flag with yellow and red, and well here it is! I especially love how the white sections that weren’t immersed and just soaked up dye turned a slight pink, which is what the sunset does too.
new mexico sunset
Lastly, we have a skein colored by my Mom. She picked her favorite colors and I set off to work. The resulting skein is very pretty and subdued, with light pink, lilac and spring green. It’s called Easter Eggs, and I think it came out great :)
easter eggs
I’m going to have a hard time selling these yarns at the craft fair, because I’m so attached to them! And I’m planning to have another dye session tonight to dye one more skein of Kona Superwash and 2 skeins of Licorice Twist. Wish me luck!
