Dyeing for Color

I was so hooked on dyeing yarn from the class at String of Purls that I ordered in some dye, supplies, and undyed yarn to try it on my own at home. I got 16 oz of DK/sport weight washable wool, seven colors of fiber-reactive dye (Navy Blue, Cerulean Blue, Better Blue-green, Marigold, Red Wine, Havanna Brown, and Plum), and I had some fun this past Friday evening. The results were varied, but I can live with it. I had more success than failure, and the failure was instructive.


From left: The "problem" skein, rainbow socks, macaw, and tie-dye blues. See below for more detail on each.

Grrrr! Problems!

My first skein dyed was a mess! I'd done my figure-eight ties faithfully, then I clipped the tails of those ties because I didn't want to chance that they would drip dye into areas where I didn't want dye.

WRONG! Soaking in the soda ash caused the wool to swell up and therefore my little square knots came undone and all of my ties fell out except for the place where the beginning and end of the skein were tied together.

So, after pressing out the excess moisture, I had to do some quick ties (with regular wool that hadn't been "fixed" in the soda ash -- you can see how those ties didn't take the dye). Unfortunately, this had the effect of causing places in the wool skein to dry out. Dry wool = little or no dye filling in. Thus, I had big white spots.

Another problem was spotting (red wine into the marigold). NOT what I'd intended. I think that was sloppiness in applying the dye rather than an errant drip when it was wrapped up.

The overall problem was color. I admit I was experimenting here, but it was awful in my opinion. It's Havanna brown, red wine, marigold, "better" blue-green, and plum — yuck! too much of the same color value, and none of it really harmonious.

The Macaw

Success!!! I started with marigold at one end, then went to cerulean blue, the "better" blue-green, and finally navy blue. The colors in real life are even better than they appear on the screen. The blue-green melts into the navy blue.

The swatch (here and in succeeding posts) are done on US 3.0 needles over 28 sts. (I would cast on 56 sts for socks with this weight.) I think the overall effect on doing socks would be a kind of golden stripe among the blues and greens.

Tie-Dye Blues

This was a mistake that turned out well in the end, I think. I used the "better" blue-green, cerulean blue, and navy blue on this skein. In some areas the bare wool had dried out somewhat (another skein that had to be re-tied after soaking in the soda ash solution), so there are light-dye places and a few white spots, but it has a nice effect overall.

Rainbow Socks

This was an experiment in dyeing two skeins at the same time in order to achieve the same (or very similar) effects on both. These are 2 oz. skeins (each will make a sock) and I chose the safe route of rainbow colors, starting with plum on the left, then cerulean blue, marigold (which mixes with the cerulean blue to make a nice grass green), red wine, and Havanna brown. In retrospect, I need more shade contrast (more darker and lighter tints) to give it more depth, but it's not bad.