Last week I tried dyeing with a jar and liquid dye. This week I’m going to find out what happens with dry dye. (Spoiler alert: It’s a bit of disaster!) This part of the Peacock Fade Set (Last week was Part 1).
For my base for all of them, I will be using Frida. It’s a 100% Merino Wool Superwash with 16 microns of softness. It’s so super-duper soft, and just touching it during the dyeing process is luscious. It will make the most luxurious sweater.
For my dye colors across the entire Peacock fade, I mixed jars of it at once with 1 tsp of citric acid per color. I dyed everything on the same day too, but you’ll have to be patient to see the finished product!
With Jacquard Acid Dyes, I used:
• Yellow – Sun Yellow
• Light Green – Chartreuse (with a touch of Spruce)
• Green – Kelly Green
• Blue – Brilliant Blue
• Purple – Violet
In the jar, I added a ½ teaspoon of citric acid and 1/8 tsp of the Brilliant Blue dye powder. I don’t know why I added more citric acid. I’m sure I had a reason, but I can’t remember what that reason was.
The yarn had been soaking in water. I wrung out the skein and squished half of it into a jar. I added 1/8 tsp of the Violet dye powder directly onto the yarn. I squished in the rest of the yarn.
Slowly, I added water into the jar until it was up to the brim. I capped it and set it aside.
After a while, I checked on the yarn and I wasn’t happy at all. The color had barely moved. It was going to look awful.
To confirm my fear, I pulled out the yarn to see what was happening. The purple was laying in a blob of color and there was barely any blue. And a whole lot of bare yarn. This would not do!
Taking the yarn out of the jar, I added ½ cup of water and let the blue dye dissolve. Then I squished the yarn back into the jar. With my finger, I made a divot in the top of the yarn and added more purple dye powder.
More water was added to the jar. I also kept poking at the yarn with my finger to help the purple dye move down further.
That’s better! There is at least some color now! I think when using the dry powder, I shouldn’t have wrung out the yarn before I added it. It might work better that way.
The yarn sat for another hour before hopping into the pot with the other jar from last week. As a reminder, the water was brought up to simmering for 20 minutes. It was cooled overnight in the pot.
I rinsed out the yarn and hung it up to dry. It turned out pretty cool. I’m certainly glad I went back and added more water into the equation. It kept it from being a blob!
And now I have the bookends for my Peacock Cock Fade set.
Stay tuned for next week where I work on the middle of the set!
About Tara
Tara Warburton is the former graphic designer for Makers' Mercantile® and a fine artist. She specializes in watercolor and colored pencil illustrations. She lives with her two cats, who are not helpful when knitting.
