Yarn Dyeing

First, a little music to start the evening.  I truly miss my blog play list!

This past Saturday night Autumn and I attempted Yarn Dyeing.  I'd found a simple step by step article in the awesome craft magazine below.  Yes, yes, I DO realize one can buy just about any color of yarn imaginable on the craft store shelves, but where's the fun in that?  There's something artistic about choosing and mixing the different colors to produce one of a kind skeins of yarn.  And little jars of Wilton Food Dye gel makes my heart skip a beat.

This is the coolest craft magazine and it's chocked full of "neat-o-frito" ideas.  It's only available until the beginning of August so if you want it, get your behind to the bookstore and grab it soon (the magazine, not your little behind).  I just hope there will be another Stitch Craft Create issue to replace this one! 

We started with our beautiful Wilton Icing Colors, some Vinegar and a two balls of Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn in white.  If you've ever used Wilton colors to tint cake frosting, then you know they are amazing.  The color they give is so much brighter than regular food coloring. 

We used about this much of the colored gel and mixed it with 3/4 cups water and 1/8 cups vinegar.

We did the dyeing outside on the deck, just in case of spills.  Bonus: It was a nice night to be outside!

Pouring on the dye.

We soaked the small skeins of yarn in water for about 20 minutes (that's them in the shallow spaghetti pot) before setting them in the dye.  Once they were fully colored, we placed plastic wrap over the dish and put the yarn in the microwave for a minute and a half.  Once the yarn had cooled (BTW, nuked in the microwave gets really really hot) we rinsed it in a sink of warm water.  It usually took three rinses to get all of the excess dye out of the yarn.  The magazine says not to let the water run onto the yarn because it will ruin the fibers, just give it a bath.

By this time the neighbors probably thought we were makin' a bomb, so we hung the mini-skeins on the deck railing until nightfall, then transferred them into the house.  They took almost 24 hours to dry completely.

Here are all of the little mini-skeins of yarn all wrapped neatly into little balls of yarn.  We think they turned out to be quite pretty!

We had a blast with this project and hope to do it again someday.  We divided the yarn between the two of us.  I will display mine in a jar and Autumn is going to crochet something with hers. 

Until Tomorrow,
Have a Colorful, Happy Day