Since some of you asked rather loudly for the conclusion of my dyeing adventures, here is the final installment. 
Enjoy!
I took my Kool-aid madness to the next level by giving handpainting a try. But first I have to tell you about the yarn that I used.
This is a new skien of handspun that I actually completed last Saturday. The roving came from a vendor at the CT Sheep and Wool festival this year, whose name I cannot remember for the life of me. All I can tell you about this fiber was that it came in a 4 oz. ball of roving and that it is wool. I originally bought it to use on the drop spinndle and never got around to it, so I figured it would be good for practicing with the new wheel.
Well, I was semi-right. It was good practice. Good practice with *awful* roving. I really wish I knew what this was, because I would never buy it again. First, it smelled funky while being spun. It certainly never was stored improperly and it didn’t smell musty, but it had a distincly odd odor. Not a pleasant one either. The other big problem? It felt like I was trying to draft nylon when I worked with it. It had the weirdest stretch and took a lot of muscle to get it to work. It spun up fairly thick because I was just too hard to draft. Has anyone had this kind of experience with a roving before? Obviously it was undyed so it couldn’t have been that, but maybe it was just processed badly? I really would be interested in hearing from anyone with thoughts on this because I would really like to steer clear of something like this in the future.
Since it was just “practice yarn” I decided to try navajo plying again, this time with the lower wheel ratio (which I now know how to do thanks to Risa!). The ratio changed helped a bit, but as you may be able to tell in the pic above, the spots where the loops change didn’t work out too well. I’m going to blame that on the yuckyness of this yarn and not on myself since my first attempt wasn’t so bad. Incidentally, after plying this and having a lot of frustration with stopping and starting the wheel, I rubbed a little paraffin on the scotch tension cord and it starts and stops like a dream now. Go figure.
So I figured this skein would be big enough for handpainting and I didn’t really care what happened to it! I assembled the tools and colors I needed:
Plastic bags to cover the counter, three different flavors of Kool-aid, and a Turkey baster. Despite what HWJF says, I really did buy the Turkey baster for the upcoming holiday cooking and not for this purpose!
The process was fairly simple. I picked up color in the baster, squirted it where I wanted it to go, then pushed the yarn into the color to make sure that it went all the way through all the plies. I started with the darkest color on the end, the blue in the middle and the green at the end. When I felt like everything was saturated enough, I picked up the skein and put it in a microwave safe dish.
That’s where I ran into a bit of trouble. I couldn’t fit the whole length of yarn in the microwave dish without bending it and then the biggest dish I had wouldn’t fit in the microwave! The transfering to different dishes made some of the colors run so my nice separate areas of color got blended a little more than I really wanted. The dark red being the biggest offender. Considering this was all one big experiment, I really didn’t worry about it too much.
After a nuked the yarn for 2 min. it was plenty hot, so I let it cool. When all of the yarns that you saw yesterday and this one were cool enough to handle, I rinsed them out, gave them each a bit of a wash in some Eucalan and hung them up to dry.
Ready for the final results? Here are the three solid colored skeins:
I didn’t stir the pink much so there are varying degrees of color in the skein. The black cherry came out really well on the gray Lincoln! And the grape penetrated the two ply skein quite well.
And here is the final result with the handpainting:
Not terrible for a first try. The red is overpowering and I (of course) would have liked more blue, but I’m fairly pleased with the results. The colors are fairly accurate on my monitor (they lack a little brightness), despite the lack of sunlight when the pics were taken.
I had so much fun with this and I can’t help but think about trying some “real” dyes now. I’ve even picked up the “Twisted Sister Sock Workbook” by Lynne Vogel in the last couple of days and I think the chapter on dyeing is fascinating. But I have one major question that perhaps some of you out there might be able to answer: How do you do this in a small apartment kitchen with limited equipment? Everything in the book talks about space and equipment that I just don’t have. Is there a way to do dyeing on a small scale? Or do I just have to win the lottery and buy a huge house asap? Any feedback on this whole dyeing thing would be much appreciated!
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Dyeing does take up a lot of space. But Dave (Cabin Cove) does it in a studio apartment. You might want to check his blog, he has a lot of good information there.
Very pretty!! I bought a ton of Kool-Aid a while back to attempt dyeing and never got around to it. Now that I’ve moved, I no longer have a microwave. I may have to do it old-school, on the stovetop. I hope you get some other good suggestions!
I’ve now seen two yarn shops with “studio space”–one in CA, and one here in VA. I haven’t checked into the details here, but the one in CA could be rented for a reasonable hourly rate and included use of a bunch of equipment. I’m not as space limited as I used to be, but dyeing is really not toddler-compatible unless I want to do it in the middle of the night. I was all ready to talk some friends into an afternoon at Suzoo’s before I moved.
I’m no help, I’ve taken over my entire glazing area in the pottery studio. And they thought a 20 foot counter was excessive. Gotta clean it all up today and actually glaze some pots.
But I did hit up the thrift stores and dollar stores for equipment, lots of containers and pans and measuring and stuff. Check out the book Yarn to Dye For. Their list of equipment is very reasonable. Ajia at Sock Porn also does her dyeing in her apartment kitchen.
I got some dyes from ProChem (the washfast acid ones) and I only used a big stockpot (ceramic from WalMart) and a mask and that’s pretty much it. I think you’d be able to do it in an apartment! I just mixed the solution, simmered it on the stove and rinsed! I like the mostly solids though, so I havent done any painting….
Wow, those are beautiful! Maybe SnB used really bright colors in their Kool-Aid dying project and that’s what turned me off? No help on the small space issue, but have fun!
Beautiful results! You have me almost motivated to give dyeing another go. I’ve never tried the hand painted thing nor did the koolaid in the micro. I’m thinking my kids might enjoy painting with the koolaid.
I know I know! Find a friend who does have a lot of space and hold a dyeing party with all your fiber friends. You can pay the rental “fee” with a portion of your dyed fiber/yarn.
It’s more fun that way. Also, go thrifting for the dyeing equipment and share it. I’ve worked with the Lanaset dyes, and I really liked the Twisted Sisters book too! Have you checked out the “knitalong”? I haven’t joined, but there are some great posts there. =)
I have a pretty big kitchen, but I live with a man and a teenager so 90% of the flat surfaces are taken up with..well, crap. SO what I do is roll out my dishwasher and cover the top with newspaper then a layer of saran wrap, THEN I do the dyeing on the saran wrap, wrap it all up tightly (not the newspaper, just the yarn in the wrap) and coil it up, put it on a paper plate and then nuke it – this way the colors don’t run as much as they would if you tried to put it into a dish. You probably don’t have a roll-y dishwasher, but maybe the nuking in the wrap idea might help? Maybe? ;o)
I didn’t do any dying until we moved into the house, but I know it’s possible to do in an apartment.
First I would pick out a surface and figure out how you want to protect it. The nice thing about the clear wrap is it will protect you table (mostly) and you use it heat set the colors.
Go to Goodwill, or a thrift store and get your equipment. I think I paid a total of $10 for a few pots, a few steamers, measuring utinsils and I bought new Squeeze bottles like the ones restaurants use for Ketchup.
After you squeeze the colors onto the yarn, roll it up into the clear wrap and steam it in the pot. It’s super easy, and the colors won’t bleed so much.
I haven’t dyed any yarn lately because of the cloudy weather, but I’m starting to think that’s going to have to change.
Love the red one! *covets* I know what you mean about getting burned with a roving. I just finished up a bobbin of wool/mohair/angora in a delicious plummish black with pink bits and it was SOOO matted that I had to yank it and stretch it apart into a much wider strip so I could spin it without getting stuck. You could hear the fibers ripping apart as I widened the hank of it.
I dye in a kitchen with exactly three feet of usable counterspace. Or should I say I spread it all out and dye on a shower curtain on our big dining room table. So yeah… I know your pain. And remember, I’m actually trying to have a business doing this (at least on the side for now)!
My husband and I had a long talk about shop matters this weekend and one of them was what it would take to get access to an industrial kitchen. Not likely because the rent for the only place I know of is prohibitive and would raise my overhead too high. But we also talked about what we’ll be looking for in a house when the time comes. #1 after being able to afford the mortgage is studio space. I don’t care if I have to save up for a shed and we outfit it that way. Must. Have. Studio.
Keep up the good work!
Pretty!
Hey, my first few dyeing experiments were with the sun-tea method. I don’t know how your apartment’s set up (balcony?) but you get a big jar, put enough water and koolaid/dye to cover your yarn, toss in your soaked yarn and put it outside on the balcony/porch for a few hours. Good old solar power. There’s a few posts about it on my blog somewhere in the archives.
You are not the last one blogland to try it, as I have not yet. It all looks great!! My problem is like you lack of space.