KnitWit: Rantings of a Rabid Knitter

Some people have asked if I could put my recipe for using Easter Egg Dyes for dyeing yarn in writing. I will do my best to cover all the important details. Please let me know if I have left anything out.

Ingredients:

• Animal fiber of some kind (wool, mohair, alpaca, silk, canine, … )
• Easter Egg dyes (I like the tablets)
• Warm tap water
• Hot water
• Optional: Mild acid like vinegar, lemon juice, uric acid (the stuff found in wee)

Safety equipment: rubber gloves (unless you don’t mind being caught red (or blue, green, purple, yellow,…) handed)

Steps:

Take a container that you don’t want to use for food ever again. (Just as a precaution). Use glass, or plastic containers. DO NOT USE METAL.

Put the fiber into the container. Make sure that the container is big enough so that the fiber will be completely covered (or not if you can’t find one) and has room to move around. The fiber can be in many different forms roving, raw (cleaned), yarn hank, yarn skeins, or even a yarn ball.

Fill the container with warm tap water to saturate the fiber.

As the fiber is soaking up the water, boil some more water.

When the water is really hot (I don’t necessarily wait for it to boil impatient as I can be) completely cover the fiber with hot water.

Add some glugs of acid (or a smidgen of uric acid power). (I like to use white vinegar. I have had lemon juice mildew some yarn I did not get well rinsed out.) The stronger the acid, the deeper the color will be. If you don’t want a deep rich color, don’t use any acid. If you don’t have any acid, don’t worry it will still dye.

Drop in the Easter Egg dye. I like to use 2 tablets per hank or skein. I prefer to use complimentary colors and not contrasting colors. For example, with red, I would use blue, purple, orange or yellow. I would not use red and green together. Red and green make brown since all the primary colors are present red, blue+yellow=green. Look on a color wheel and pick neighbors at most one place away.

Walk away. Discourage the cat (or other animals) from drinking, or playing with the containers. Try not to do this on the floor in front of the frig, and piss off your significant other who wants a drink or a snack. Try not to trip on said containers trying to get yourself a drink and then have to put the kitchen rug in the washer. Only to discover, the floor is really filthy. I mean it has only been 3 weeks since I last swept. Or is that 3 months? I can’t remember units.

Oh check on fiber. If your containers are a little bit on the small side, turn the fiber over carefully making sure not to spill on the freshly swept floor. (If you have counter space to do such things, I guess you could use them instead of the floor. This is just not a situation I am familiar with.)

Once most of the color is gone from the water or your significant others patience has reached a limit, rinse out the fiber. I do this in the bath tub. Put on your rubber gloves. Rinse until the water runs clear or your back starts hurting from leaning over whichever comes first . I have a problem with green and blue. It does not seem to take as well as the other colors and requires a lot of rinsing. I sometimes let it soak in clean water for 15 minutes to “oh my I forgot that was in there all night”. Once it is rinsed out, then you need to turn your skeins and balls into hanks so that it will dry faster and not mildew. I have a metal swift I use. You can also use a niddy-noddy covered with plastic wrapping. Or if you have one of those make it yourself niddy-noddies out of PVC piping, I am sure that would work great.

Hang to air dry. I also hang my roving. Raw fiber I put on a sweater drier.

Enjoy,Carry.

Result may vary due to the temperature of the water, the type of dye, the type of fiber, acidity level of the solution, humidity level, patients of significant others, cleanliness of your house, cooperation of two or four legged children, number of said children, size of pots, ratio of fiber to dye, ……