After Rhinebeck, the fiber fun continued at Mom’s house! She had one skein (~1100 yds lace weight, Merino/Bamboo blend) left to dye so Monday morning we set out to dye it up! We made a few little mini skeins for experimenting, soaked them in citric acid…
Picked a few colors…
and away we went…
We started with just purple…
Notice how Mom’s technique rinses clear! No bleeding, no excess dye, no mess! I’ll save the rant for some other time but seriously, this is the way it should always be!
Of course, I wasn’t content with just one color.
Green and, eventually, Orange wiggled their way into the plan. At some point over the weekend, I was bitten by the Halloween bug. It didn’t itch or sting but the effects seem to be growing. Neon Green yarn at Rhinebeck was not enough. This is the sample I decided upon…
I knew what I was doing, I made the crazy clown barf decision with willful defiance. I have no one but myself to blame if it doesn’t work out. LOL! So we set to work…
To prevent the colors from bleeding into each other, we applied the dye with a thickening agent. It was messy and squishy and it took a while.
I can see why hand painted yarns are so expensive! It was labor intensive!
Roll it up and into the microwave it went!
After it cooled, we rinsed it and this is what we were left with…
I love it! I have a few ideas for it! It’s so fun! I’m gonna admire it for a bit…I have a feeling it will be wound soon!
FogKnits 
I love that! Great colors!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! Sometimes, a beautiful neutral just won’t do :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is awesome. I can’t wait to see it knit up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Me either! It’s currently number 2 in the queue :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautiful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks!
LikeLike
“Clown barf”!!! Bwahahahaa!!! I totally and completely love it. I can’t wait to see what it turns into!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m thinking something from Martina Behm, a Hitchhiker cousin if you will…maybe Brickless, it’s been in my queue forever!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great post!! I haven’t used a thickening agent for dyeing yet but I’ve thought about it for when I dye sock blanks- that’s when I have the most trouble keeping the colors from running. It will be exciting to see your hand-dyed knit up!! :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think we went a little overboard with it, we could have thickened less than we did and still been okay…it gave us amazing precision though! It’s crazy how many different dye techniques are out there!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your yarn looks awesome. How do you thicken your dye?
LikeLike
Apparently there are two choices for thickening agents…one that my mom has not been able to find called agar agar (I think) and the one we used, xanthum gum.
We just mixed it up in the blender :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Really I bet that would help with the bleeding a lot.
LikeLike
I’m trying to tell myself I don’t need to get into dyeing yarn, but you made it look so much fun, and actually not too difficult. Love what you ended up with!
LikeLiked by 1 person
There’s definitely a learning curve, but it is fun to play with samples and pick colors and see what happens!
The only problem…you can dye yarn a lot faster than you can knit it! My stash is growing a bit out of control :) not that there’s anything wrong with that!
LikeLike
LOL my stash is big enough! (wait, did I just say that?? Don’t tell my husband!) I think I better focus on growing my knitting skills before I attempt dyeing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your secret is safe with me :)
LikeLiked by 1 person