A foray into dyeing

A while ago I won a Kool Aid dyeing kit, which comprised a skein of sock yarn and quite a few sachets of drink mix. This week I decided to make my first attempt at dyeing yarn. The original idea was to dye two skeins of sock yarn a pale lime green, basically a solid-ish colour.

In attempt 1, I used a stock pot on the stove top. For the green, I mixed one sachet of Lime with one of Lemonade, and small amount of Mango. I'd printed out some instructions from Knitty, and also had an info sheet that came with the other skein of yarn. Based upon these I put the dye solution into the pot, then put the soaked skeins in on top of this. I quickly realised this wasn't going to give an even distribution of colour, far from it! The yarn took up the dye incredibly fast, and because at this point there was very little water in the pot, it was pretty much confined to the lower parts of the skeins that were in contact with the solution. Now I realised that my original plan was probably rather ambitious, given the quantity of dye available, but even after adding water, I could tell the solution was just about exhausted before I switched on the heat!

Ending up with 2 skeins dyed in patches in green, I mixed up some Pink Lemonade and some Grape. The first skein I just used the pink, applying with a turkey baster that we have never used (skein laid out flat on some plastic). The second got the purple with a few splashes of pink. This bit is a lot of fun - I wasn't aiming for anything terribly organised, just trying out the techniques. These skeins were set, one by one, using the microwave. They have turned out pretty well, considering they have been through twice the process!

Pink/green skein, rewound into a centre-pull ball:



I had to snip this part way through, as both skeins had developed a few tangles due to not being tied well enough (I just left the ties on that they came with, which probably weren't quite snug enough to begin with)

Green/purple/pink skein, rewound:



I wound the first part of this one off by hand, as this had got a wee bit more tangled.

All in all, I'm pleased with how these turned out, especially as a first attempt!