Monday, October 15, 2007

A little fun with some food dye.

I spent a little time yesterday dyeing some wool. You might remember my last attempt at a dye job. As a first attempt it was okay but it was highly variable in places and not nearly how I ecpected it to turn out. These ones I am VERY happy with. I decided to dip dye them rather than pour the dye on and that is something I will do from here on in. I also like just the two colours. Last time I really tried to over complicate things. What will I do with these? Hell, I don't know! It was therapy.

The technical details if you are interested. Yarn is 100% wool "Clinker" from Kmart - dirt cheap, takes colour well and in my opinion perfiect for the beginner. I used Queen food dyes. The pink and green are diluted "Rose Pink" and plain old green. The purple is a mixture of cochineal and blue and the orange is the "Pillarbox Red" and yellow. The yarn was soaked for about 30 miuntes in a vinegar bath (equal parts vinegar and water), were dipped into a dilute solution of dye in a bowl, the excess dye squeezed from them, wrapped in gladwrap, microwaved for 6 minutes on high, dried and then reskeined.

This is the tutorial I used if you are interested.

1 comment:

Georgie said...

Oooh, cool. I bought some of that wool when they were clearing it out at my Kmart, so it's good to know it takes colour well. I'll find the time to do it eventually.

I love your colours, would love to see how they knit up!