The first step in the dyeing process is selecting my yarn bases. I decided to source my undyed yarn from Yarn Undyed over other suppliers because:
They have the best range, quality and prices (especially with the discounts given to business accounts).
They only stock wool from reputable, ethical farms with high standards of animal welfare, ensuring the sheep have not been mulesed
Previous experience has been very positive – they send free samples of yarns upon request before buying full skeins. Excellent fast and friendly service.
Once I had ordered my samples I selected my range of bases assessed on price, texture, diversity and personal preference and placed my first order of 75 skeins! (at this point I had forgotten to take into account any disappointing outcomes and the yarn I would need to use in my pattern designs! The fast and friendly service that had swayed me to use Yarn Undyed paid off in the week before deadline!)
Choosing dyes:
There are many producers of acid dyes. I wanted to ensure that sustainability was central to the ethos of the supplier I chose. Whilst Jaquard are probably the best known producers of acid dyes, they are based in California and I wanted to support UK businesses and minimise my carbon footprint and so selected Colourcraft.
About ColourCraft
Established in 1978, we are a UK family run business specialising in the manufacture and distribution of a wide range of high quality, environmentally friendly, non toxic, water based, innovative products. We are market leaders in the supply of art materials and products for textile design including fabric dyes, fabric paints and printing systems.
Each range is carefully monitored from formulation to production by our Technical Director and staff to ensure excellent, professional results. Because we manufacture in house we can ensure that full technical back up is available. We also source products from other leading manufacturers. We will only work with companies who have a reputation for supplying goods of the finest quality. They are selected with great care bearing in mind that an important part of our vision is to maintain a policy of social, economic and environmental responsibility.
The dye process.
Here is my dyeing set up: As I am only a small scale dyer, dyeing to order I can use my kitchen and a few pans and utensils set aside specifically for dyeing (ensuring they are not used for food!)
I made a short video to show my dye process:
I have set up my YouTube channel and intend to share video tutorials for patterns here. The dye process one is here for assessment purposes as WordPress won’t allow me to sharevideos over 5 minutes unless a pay to upgrade!
The finished yarn:
There are various methods of dyeing yarn: In a large, shallow pan on a stove, in a deep stock pot on a stove, wrapped in cling film in the microwave, specialist dye pots. I am using the first 2 methods as I don’t have a spare microwave, the cling film is an unnecessary use of plastic and I don’t wish to purchase specialist dye pots just yet…maybe in the future if the demand is there.
There are also several techniques:
solid/semi solid – mix the dye in a deep stock pot with enough water for the yarn to move freely, then submerge the yarn in the dye, warm until the dye is mostly absorbed into the yarn and the water is almost boiling and then add the acid (vinegar). For a semi solid colour with dark and light areas, add the acid before the yarn. This will make the colour strike fast in some places, giving variations of darker and lighter areas.
Variegated yarns – see video above. In a large shallow pan, put enough water to cover the bottom of the pan so the yarn won’t burn, but it doesn’t completely cover the yarn – it’s only partially submerged. Maybe half a centimeter. soak the yarn in an acid/water solution for 20 mins and spread out in the pan. Dot pre-mixed dyes around the yarn (I use a meat syringe, but you can use squeezy bottles or just dollop teaspoons of the dye, but this may not saturate the yarn all the way through and you night need to flip it over and dye the other side! Heat until water is simmering and runs clear. For a more sublte variegated yarn you can do this in a stock pot with water just covering the yarn. The dye will disperse in the water and will blend more, so this should only be done with colours that blend well – blue and orange for example will create a horrible brown in places.
Speckles – prepare yarn as above, pre-soaked in the dilute acid in a shallow pan with just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat on and sprinkle the dried dye powder onto your yarn, either pinching whilst wearing rubber gloves or sprinkling through a tea strainer. This works better on some yarns than others – on some the speckles will strike immediately giving hard dots, on others the dots spread and give a more subtle effect.
Dip-Dyeing – this is more effective with natural dyes as the yarn takes on the dye more slowly, but if you’re quick you can do it with the acid dyes too. Quickly dip the yarn to give a light shade, then dip maybe 3/4 of the yarn again for a few seconds or until you can see a darker shade forming. Then dip only half for the same amount of time so it gets even darker and finally the last 1/4, giving an ombre effect.
Overdyeing – this was an experiment/happy accident! I dyed a skein using the orange, light orchid, periwinkle and mint green and it looked horrible – I forgot to adjust the dye recipes and the colours came out far too strong and just didn’t go well. Part of me knows that someone somewhere would have loved it, but I wondered what would happen if I overdyed it with black – would it completely cover these already rich, saturated colours and obliterate them, or not? I mixed a 1g black solution and re-dyed using the solid colour method & got this gorgeous oilslick effect! I have tried a few times now and this is totally repeatable and my favourite colourway by far.
clairemaloney 