...With Brilliant Luck And Sometimes A Bright Idea

This title is from the song Hangman by Motion City Soundtrack.  Once again, the song has nothing to do with the following entry, but, you know, just go with it, ok? :)  

I finally got around to learning how to dye yarn.  Look at my pretties:

Aren't they lovely? Well, I think they are :)  

I used some leftover Patons from Connie's Christmas Scarf.  I unwound the 1.8ish skeins I had leftover by wrapping it around the back of a chair.  This step in particular killed me.  To unwind a perfect, unknotted ball of yarn only to ultimately have to rewind it by hand hurt just a widdle bit.  I'm seriously lacking in the proper equipment department...see exhibit A below:

Uh, yeah.  Haha, I don't wanna talk about it.    

Over the next few days my yarn sat in my hand(mouth?)made skeins as I searched for something, anything to dye my yarn in.  We have a glass electric cooktop that I've been warring with as of late (there was a bit of a spoon-melting burn incident).  This means that all of our pots and pans need to have a 1/4" platform on the bottom so as to not short out the stove (ask us how we know).  The only pots I could find that fit these specifications were nicer than the ones that we actually cook with, and I wasn't going to spend that much on a pot to put yarn in.  

I looked for some sort of Pyrex-esque dish to microwave with.  My local Goodwill really let me down in this department.  I wasn't expecting to find a pot that was suitable for my stove there, but I figured there would be something suitable for the microwave.

Wrong.

Not only were the dishes that they had Easy-Bake oven sized, but there was an older guy trying to chat me up that was freakin' me out a little bit.  

So I temporarily gave up on the dish/pot, and decided to go looking for Kool-Aid in the mean time.  I tried a nearby Stop and Shop.  When I got to the Kool-Aid aisle I discovered that unsweetened Kool-Aid happened to be on sale that week.  

Oh, crap.

I was able to find a singular packet of a blue flavor after scouring the entire section for anything that had blue or green dye in it. 

So I tried to find some food-coloring.  Stop and Shop is fantastic at hiding this item.  Apparently, to them, it makes sense to put food coloring with spices since they're all made by the same company.  

Well, of course! I don't know about you, but I've always wanted some red oregano, what a great idea!

They only had the standard box of food coloring, and the lines were long, so I ditched my one blue packet of Kool-Aid and left for greener (or bluer) pastures.

I then found an A&P...where Kool-Aid was NOT on sale.  This store had an abundance of Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid, but nothing with blue dye.  I grabbed a bunch of packets of Lemon-Lime and searched for food-coloring.

A&P puts their food coloring in the baking aisle, which is the logical place for such an item.  They also had both the regular and neon boxes of food coloring, so I happily grabbed both.  Next item: vinegar.

I won't say just how long it took me to find the stuff, but I will say that I walked up and down aisles 1-10 at least two times each until I asked an employee who advised me that vinegar was in aisle 0, across from the produce.  The way she answered suggested that I had not been the first person to ask this.  

The ol' aisle 0 trick.  I shoulda known.

Anyway, now I had all of my dye and my yarn, but nothing to dye it in.  I stopped into Target on a whim a few days later to see what sorts of Pyrex-esque dishes they might have, only to discover an aisle of crock-pots.

::Heavenly "ahhh" sounds::

The 5-liter crock-pot I ended up with was on sale and only a few more dollars than the dish I was looking at buying.  I figured I might as well get that and have a self-contained dyeing operation.

On Friday I finally got the opportunity to start dyeing.  I started by soaking the smaller hank in our laundry sink in room-temperature water with a dash of dishsoap liquid for about an hour.  

I then started to prepare the dyebath.  I filled my crock-pot to about 2.5" from the rim with room-temperature water.  I measured half a cup of vinegar (just for good measure, because I didn't have the b-lls to just rely on the acid in the Kool-Aid...and I had put so much effort into finding the freakin' stuff, I figured I might as well use it) and mixed it into the water.  I got my yarn out of the sink where it had been soaking for about an hour and fifteen minutes by now and I gently squeezed the water out with a towel.  I then added the yarn into the crock-pot where I made sure it was fully immersed.  

I then started mixing my dye concoction.  I wanted a kettle dyed blueish/greenish yarn, so I mixed two packets of Lemon-lime Kool-Aid in a mug filled about half-way with water.  I then added neon-blue dye about 10 drops at a time.  I ended up putting about 35 drops of dye into the mix.  There's a lot of interesting color info out there, check out this fantastic blog.

I used a stirring spoon to hold my yarn to the side as I poured the dye mix into my crock-pot and then I stirred everything together.  I made sure all of my yarn was covered with water/dye, covered the pot, and put it on high. 

 

After approximately an hour and a half, I came back downstairs to check my yarn and I discovered that my yarn was done.  I put my white plastic spoon into the pot and my water was clear.

I know the spoon is kinda glowing in that picture, so you can't see the clear water, but it was indeed clear.  I turned the crock-pot off and let it sit.

This was not a major mistake, but for the second skein, I was sure to take the stonewear with my yarn in it OUT of the heating portion to cool much faster.  Duh.  

After it had cooled down, I poured out the water and put my yarn back in the sink with water about the same temperature as the yarn, and gently washed everything with some shampoo/conditioner and rinsed until the water was clear.  It entertained me that my yarn stopped bleeding after a single rinse where as the Bearfoot I have been using for a recent project still hasn't stopped bleeding.

I gently used a towel to squeeze the water from my yarn and then I hung it on a hanger over the sink to dry out.

For the second (and larger) skein, I pretty much repeated these steps.  Emphasis on the "pretty much".  

Enter that "brilliant luck" from the title of this entry.  

Since this skein was larger, I figured I'd need a touch more dye to achieve the same color as the first skein.  I originally added a drop of regular green and maybe three more drops of neon blue to the dye mix before adding it to the water.  I set the pot on high and let it sit for a little bit, but I had the nagging feeling that my yarn wasn't turning out the same color.  In the next half hour, I proceeded to add drops of neon blue, regular green and maybe half a drop of neon green to the crock-pot as it cooked.  I do not recommend doing this, but for whatever reason, it worked out for me.  I took my yarn out of the crock-pot while the water was still slightly, slightly blue because I knew that I had added too much dye to the overall mix while I was trying to achieve the same shade, and my yarn ended up the same color. 

Since I used grey yarn and I was careful to make sure everything was fully immersed in my crock-pot, I got a pretty solid colored yarn.  I was trying to achieve this.  I also got that very subtle kettle dyed variegation that I was aiming for.  Nothing near as exciting as a hand-painted yarn, but still visually interesting and the effect I was going for.

I think I have a new addiction...

Happy fibery adventures!

Kelly