Author: Tara Warburton

It’s October and you know what that means? Halloween! The stores are already filled with candy and thrift stores have piles and piles of costumes. In honor of the spooky holiday, I’ve dyed up some Halloween sock yarn.

I’m using color 8899 of Schoppel-Wolle Boots, a blend of 44% Superwash Wool, 42% Cotton, and 14% Nylon. I thought the black marl of the cotton threads would be particularly appropriate for Halloween. It’s pretty much the opposite of Shiloh which had the white marl from a few weeks ago.

In sticking with my spooky theme, I decided to go with a three-color mix of purple, green and orange. Because these are secondary colors (as opposed to primary colors) I was extremely concerned that if the dye colors overlapped, it would create a gross brown color which certainly would not go with my theme.

Using little glass jars, I mixed some water, ½ tsp of citric acid and 1/16 tsp of Jacquard Acid Dyes. My recipes are:
•  1/16 tsp Jacquard Violet + a dash of Hot Fuchsia
•  1/16 tsp of Jacquard Pumpkin Orange + dash of Sun Yellow
•  1/16 tsp of Jacquard Chartreuse + dash of Kelly Green
I added the dashes of other colors to help brighten things up just a tiny bit.

The yarn was laid out in a triangle. Each leg of the triangle is going to get dyed a solid color. Using a syringe, I applied the color and worked it through with my fingers gently. I left the very corners of the yarn bare. I repeated this process for each leg.

At this point, I very slowly added color to the triangle tips and worked it in with my fingers until the dye colors just barely touched. So far, so good! No mud!

Next came wrapping the cinnamon bun so it could go in the microwave. This part scared me the most. I didn’t want the yarn colors touching and blending into a disaster of color. First, I laid another piece of plastic wrap on top of all the yarn. And I pressed it down around, creating a weak seal between the colors. The plastic wrap was rolled starting with the orange section. I kept the triangle shape as I rolled up everything. It created a wonky cinnamon roll, but all the colors were in their sections.

The yarn was microwaved for 2 minutes, and then another 2 minutes. The dye wasn’t exhausted, but I didn’t want to risk colors running, so I let it cool to room temperature and rinsed it out thoroughly.

And guess what? My fears were totally unfounded. There isn’t any mud and it’s a beautiful Halloween yarn. The color blends are quite pretty. I’m going to call this a success!

Join the resistance! Okay, the yarn dyeing resistance isn’t nearly as cool as it sounds, but I think this dye technique is pretty nifty and I’ve seen some awesome yarns.

This week’s undyed yarn base is Shiloh - 44% Wool, 42% Cotton, and 14% Nylon. What I’m really curious about it how the cotton will react to the acid dyes. My hunch is they won’t dye but let’s find out!

To keep things simple, I’m only using two Jacquard Acid Dyes in Turquoise and Hot Fuchsia. Here's your safety reminder: wear a respirator and use dye-dedicated pots and utensils.

I started with a pot of water, 1/8 tsp of Turquoise and 1 tsp of citric acid. Unsure if felting would happen, I didn’t turn on the heat yet. Instead, I twisted the dry hank up nice and tight and gently placed it on top of the water, where it bobbed like a strange apple. The heat was turned on low and I attended to a different yarn I was dyeing that the same time.

Eventually, the hank sank into the water and became fully submerged. In retrospect, I added to much dye powder because the dye wasn’t anywhere near to exhausting. That’s okay, I used it for another project.

Using tongs (because that water is hot), I pulled out the hank. I was worried because the entire thing looked like one solid color, but I continued.

I was able to use the tongs to untwist the hank and I let it cool in the sink. This is where I got excited because clearly, the resist was working!

Once the yarn was at room temperature, I re-twisted up the wet hank, making sure a lot of the white areas were exposed. Then I put it back into a pot of water, 1/8 tsp Hot Fuchsia, and 1 tsp of citric acid. I turned on the heat and let the hank marinate for about 10 minutes.

Again, the dye didn’t entirely exhaust, so I used it on another project. To make sure all the dye had set and so I wouldn’t be rinsing out water for forever, I put both this hank and the other project using the same dye into a pot of water (some of the dye came floating out of both yarns) and turned on the heat, letting the dye exhaust. You can see a coil of Kinky yarn underneath...you’ll learn more about that next week.

The yarn was then cooled to room temperature, rinsed and hung up to dry. And my oh my, it is sure pretty! I love how the resists kept some areas turquoise and others pink, but some areas blended into a lovely purple. And the undyed areas help break up the color. I even love how the white cotton didn’t dye at all, giving it a fun texture. This is definitely a win for me!

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I am also an artist who works with watercolors and colored pencils. I’ve been lucky enough to be in a handful of art shows and galleries. I love working in those two mediums because of the color blending that can be achieved. I’ve really found that working with yarn dye is very similar to watercolors and I wanted to try an experiment with triads.

This week’s undyed yarn is Lillian - a stunning single ply of 100% Mulberry Silk which will take dye intensely and beautifully. Once it’s dyed it will have this sort of lustery glow. (And yes, I made that word up.)

What is a triad? It’s when you only use 3 colors and mix those to get all of the other colors. I’ve posted an image of "Octopus Garden" that I created using a triad. For those who are curious, I used Phthalo Blue Green Shade, Hansa Yellow Medium and Quinacridone Rose. And it’s created a delightful rainbow of color that all works together because it doesn’t introduce any addition new hues. 

So how do I recreate this on a skein of yarn? To start with, I need three colors of acid dyes. I chose Jacquard Acid Dyes in Turquoise, Hot Fuchsia and Sun Yellow. These colors closely match the art I showed you above.

I filled up my trusty dye dedicated pot with water, 1/8 tsp of the Turquoise and 1 tbsp of citric acid. I used a high amount of citric acid because I wanted the dye to strike quickly. The pot was set to almost before simmering. I also soaked the yarn in water for 2 hours before dyeing.

Holding the yarn in the middle of the hank, I let the ends hang down. I really thought I took a picture of this, but it turns out I didn’t. I dipped just the very ends in the yarn, over and over again, slowly moving up the skein. I made sure that I didn’t go past the halfway mark on the yarn. If I went much further, I wouldn’t be able to get the other two primary colors.

I continued this dipping until the dye had exhausted. I put the hank over to the side to let it cool and added a bit more water, citric acid and 1/8 tsp of Hot Fuchsia into the pot. I picked up the hank of yarn around the middle but rotated the center point over by a third. This ensured that some bare yarn would get the Hot Fuchsia dye and there would be some overlap with the Turquoise but didn’t completely cover it. If that didn’t make sense, you can see the finished hank below.

I bet you can guess what happened next! I let the pink dye exhaust and moved onto the Sun Yellow (1/4 tsp of it!). I again rotated the yarn so that the bare yarn would get the yellow color and then fade into both then pink and the blue areas.

And a beautiful double rainbow has emerged! You can see from this lovely picture from the dry yarn how I held the yarn to dip into the blue dye. 

I’m excited because this yarn turned out exactly the way I want it to. A full spectrum of the rainbow using only three colors. Lillian would be lovely combined with Zitron Traumseide​. But did you know you can embroider with this Mulberry silk as well? And that’s what I’m going to. This destined to become part of a fancy dress that I can wear to parties.

This week is a complete experiment! In my yarn dyeing research, I have come across articles where people have gotten some very beautiful results using a silver base instead of a natural base. So in proper scientific experimentation, I decided to use a yarn that we have in both Natural and Silver.

So HiKoo® Oh!  waltzed into my life. Oh! Is super-duper soft 100% Super Baby Alpaca Aran weight yarn. It’s really lovely, I want to make myself blanket out of it and never leave my couch. For the natural base, I used color Heavens and for the silver base, color My. And to keep the color palette simple, I used Jacquard Acid Dyes in Emerald, Brilliant Blue, and Violet.

To start, I tied off sections of the yarn to keep it from tangling and presoaked it water and Synthrapol for an hour. I prepped my counter by covering it in plastic wrap. And to complete the prep, I mixed the acid dyes in glass jars. I used 1/8 tsp of dye and 1 tsp of citric acid in each jar.

The two hanks of yarn were laid out next to each other. Using a syringe, I squirted out the dye directly onto the yarn.

To ensure the dye had penetrated through the entire hank, I gently squeezed the yarn and massaged it. The yarn got a better spa day than me! It’s even going to get a steam bath.

I have to say, I was pretty worried about the grey yarn at this point. It’s just so dark and the colors are extremely muted. But as always, it’s an experiment, so I persevered.

The yarn was individually wrapped into cinnamon rolls within the plastic wrap and popped into the microwave. I ran the microwave for 2 minutes, let it rest for 10 seconds, and then another 2 minutes. I did each yarn separately and used prongs to move the scalding hot yarn from the plate to the sink.

The yarn was allowed to cool to room temperature, and then thoroughly rinsed out. Once the water was running clear, the yarn went out onto the porch to dry off.

And guess what, everything I read was correct! The natural base came out with clear, bright colors. And the silver base came out with rich jewel tones. I’m curious to see what might happen if I did another glazing of blue as an overdye because I think this colorway could use a bit more of a pop.

About Tara
Tara Warburton is the 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.

While I have written at length about Jacquard Acid Dyes, did you know that Makers’ Mercantile carries another brand of acid dye as well? Wool Tinctures are these super cool little kits that come with the dye and citric acid in easy to use packages.

Fun fact: Wool Tinctures are from Whidbey Island here in Washington. So, in honor of that, my base this week is undyed Whidbey from Gauge Yarns. This Makers’ Mercantile exclusive is made from 47% Bamboo, 37% Superwash Merino, and 16% Nylon. I’ve dyed this yarn before – check out the Whidbey Forest Gradient. And in sticking with gradients, this time I’m going to try a variegated gradient.

The awesome thing about Wool Tinctures is how easy they are to use. The dye and the citric acid come in individual tea packets, which means you don’t need to wear a respirator. I’d still use dye dedicated pots and utensils though. I chose the color Blood Orange, which is an orangey-red color judging from the swatch in our store.

I dropped the dye powder dye bag into the water and let it start to dissolve. I opted to remove the citric acid from its pouch, but you could just drop it into the dye bath as well.

While the dye did its thing, I prepared the yarn skein for dyeing. I left the yarn dry, but I did put it on a shower ring. I’ve found that the shower ring not only makes dipping easier, it also keeps the yarn from tangling. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Now that the dye was dissolved, and my yarn was ready to go, I turned on the heat. While the water was starting to heat up, I dipped just the end of the hank into the water. This step was repeated multiple times as I gradually dipped the yarn further and further into the dye. I stopped at ¾ of the way up the hank.

To get one end supersaturated with dye, I hung a pants hanger from my upper cabinet, and looped the shower ring onto it (see! That thing is totally helpful!). From here, I just let the ends soak up more dye. Every once and while I would re-dip the yarn, making sure I had a smooth gradient.

At this time, I needed to make sure the remaining ¼ of the hank was also dipped into the dye bath. I decided to do it at this stage because I wanted it to be a light color and if I had dipped it earlier, there would be too much dye in the pot and it would over saturate my color.

Once I had gotten almost to the color that I wanted, I took the dye packet out of the water and let the remainder of the dye exhaust and the dye bath turned clear. All that was left after that was to let the yarn cool, rinse it, and hang it up to dry.

I’m loving the fade of colors and the different shades of gradient that was achieved. From the light pink to the deep red, it’s a beautiful colorway to add to my ever-increasing stash of yarn.

The sun is shining in Kent, WA. I know its summer and all, but sunshine isn’t a regular feature this time of the year in Western Washington. I’m so excited for fall to get here, but I figured I’d use some of the last days of summer to try an ice dyeing experiment. I’ve tried the technique on fabric and quite liked the results, but I have no idea how it will translate to yarn.

First things first, we need the yarn. For this week I chose Dominique, a DK weight that is slightly felted, single-ply, and 100% Merino Wool. My hope is this single-ply wool will show a bunch of color variation on the strand, and I didn’t want that to get lost in any plies.

I started with just the bare, dry yarn. The hank was wound with a wider diameter then some of the other undyed yarns we carry, so I was able to pile it into my pot in a random, haphazard manner.

I acquired a bag of ice from the grocery store. (You could use ice from your freezer, but I don’t have an ice maker and I wasn’t going to make a bazillion ice cubes. Because I am impatient.) I dumped a three-inch layer of ice on top of the yarn.

And out to my deck I went. I filled up some salt shakers with salt and dye powders. I used Jacquard Acid dyes in Hot Fuchsia, Turquoise, and Brilliant Blue. The salt was used because, in watercolor painting, the salt absorbs the pigment and leaves cool little splotches. I wanted to see if it did anything on the yarn. (Spoiler alert: You can skip this step!)

I liberally sprinkled the dye powder all over the ice, concentrating the colors in certain areas. I topped the dye powder off with a handful of citric acid sprinkled all over the dye. If you want to try this, I recommend doing this outdoors because the dye powder gets everywhere. And remember, wear a respirator and only use dye dedicated pots and utensils.

Last but not least, I put a huge chunk of ice on top of the whole thing. Then I went inside to get out of the sun. What? I’m a Washingtonian! I can’t handle sunshine for longer than 5 minutes.

And I just let the ice melt all day long. When I went outside to check on the yarn several hours later I kind of panicked. The ice had all melted, and the part of the yarn was all submerged, but the water had turned a dark purple color. But I reminded myself it’s just an experiment, and dark purple yarn is pretty too.

I took the pot back inside and put it on the burner. Water was added and the yarn was fully submerged.I turned on the heat, brought it up to nearly simmering and let the dye exhaust. This is where the water turns clear. It means the dye has been absorbed and set into the yarn. And this is where I did a happy dance.

And that's a shower ring I put around the hank.  I've found they cut down on tangling significantly when kettle dyeing.

Despite the dark purple water, there were all sorts of variation all over the yarn. It’s gorgeous and exactly what I was hoping for, and this was a good reminder to me to not give up and to just push through. I’m pretty excited this was a success. Now I want to try snow dyeing. But I have a feeling I’m going to have to wait for a long time for that!