Monday, January 23, 2017

Dyeing Speckled Yarn with Wilton's Violet Food Coloring


I love Wilton's Violet food coloring and I love making speckled yarn.  Why not combine the two and see if I can break Wilton's Violet food coloring as I dye speckled yarn?


When I first started adding the dye, I wasn't sure if the colors would break.  The dye is more concentrated than I usually use with Wilton's food coloring so maybe the colors would stay dark and solid.  I ended up getting colors more brilliant than I could have hoped for.


Materials and Methods
  • 100 g Stroll Fingering Yarn LINK
  • I presoaked the yarn in 16 c water (room temperature) with 3 T white vinegar for 1 hour.  I squeezed out most of the water so the yarn was wet but not dripping.
  • The Dye - 1/8 tsp Wilton's Violet food coloring LINK in 1 T water
  • Dip a plastic fork in the dye mixtures and dab onto the fiber.  Move the fiber around until you have no big white patches and are happy with the coverage.  
  • Steam the fiber over boiling water for 30 minutes.  I added a dash of salt to the steam bath.
  • After the yarn has cooled, wash with dish soap until the water runs clear and hang the yarn to dry.  

You don't have to just read about it, watch me break Wilton's Violet Food Coloring to create speckled yarn!


Why does this work?  Wilton's Violet food coloring is composed of red and blue dye molecules.  They bind to the protein based fibers under acidic conditions at different rates (I'm not sure about types of bond we're forming.)  The red binds right away but the blue take more time.  During this time the molecules diffuse away from where they were initially added to give us some really fun yarn.  


Thank you to my viewers for the notes of the metal fork on my dishes.  I do try to make changes to improve my videos.


Seriously, this yarn is stunning.  Can you blame me for my love of Wilton's violet?  Just imagine if I added even more specks of color to this yarn.


I hope that you enjoyed another breaking Wilton's violet video.  I've done this so many times in so many different ways now that I have a whole playlist dedicated to breaking violet.