Saturday, December 20, 2008

I Died Dyed Today!


O! frabjous day, Callooh Callay!  I dyed some yarn with food coloring and vinegar.  Strike me down for not taking pics.  Still having camera issues.  I knew I wanted purples.  I knew I wanted an adult palette, serious and toned down.  I also knew I did NOT want pooling.  I used some chunky superwash that I had gotten at Smiley's a few years back in a neutral color.  First, it soaked in hot water w/ a little detergent for a few minutes.  Then I squeezed it out, salad spun it, and laid it on plastic wrap on the counter.  I mixed up some squeeze bottles of warm water, a glug of vinegar and a squirt of food coloring.  I used the paste and gel colors that come in squeeze bottles in violet, gel violet, red red, and rose.  One violet separated and turned sky blue.  The black looked dark blue, one violet actually  looked purple and the pink was an afterthought when the red was too red.  It behaved more like a paint, somehow.  Anyway, I started with the black, zigzagging lines in a somewhat pattern, then added the purple, the blue, and some red.  Then, I squeezed out the excess water, flipped the yarn over, finished off the dye and still had some light spots.  I squeezed out the excess again and then overdyed in violet, which somehow looked blue.  I gave up trying, dismayed, and consigned this batch to a possible overdye after processing.  Then I microwaved for ten minutes, cooking for two and cooling for two five times.  I will def. steam on the stove next time.  This was too labor intensive for me.  I'm impatient to let the bath exhaust, and couldn't tell when it was finished, so I gave it a soapy rinse after about 4 minutes.  It ran like hell.  So I did six more minutes.  The dye still ran.  Rinsing in the bathtub helped a lot.  The colors seemed better.  I dried it on the radiator, wound it into balls and started on another neckwarmer.  Pictures to follow.  Once again, my buttons came in handy and I found the perfect ones.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

You did a beautiful job with your yarn. Will be fun to see what you make with it.

 
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