Friday, February 21, 2014

Space dye with Easter egg pellets

Last summer I hosted a dye-a-long for my crochet club.  It was so much fun to show my friends how to dye yarn using Kool-Aid.  I taught them how to hand paint the yarn, but I also wanted to demonstrate a kettle dyeing technique while we waited for the yarn to soak.  Here are some beautiful pictures of kettle dyeing using Easter Egg Dye tablets from a Egg Decorating Kit


I decided to use 2 blue, 2 purple and 2 green tablets for this dyeing demonstration.  Egg dye tablets aren't the cheapest or most efficient way to dye yarn, but they are a lot of fun!

For this demonstration, I used 100 g of Sheila's Sock Yarn from my Wool2dye4 sampler.  I added it to a pot of water with 2 T white vinegar.  I added just enough water to completely submerge the yarn and let it soak for 20 minutes. 

 

Once I knew the fibers were completely saturated, I turned on the heat to bring the dyebath to a low simmer.  Then, I placed the dye tablets in the pot, gently separating the yarn so they would not be placed just on the surface.  Then the fun of the demonstration begins, as we watch the dye diffuse into the yarn. 



After about 20 min of simmering, there was still a lot of color in water I therefore decided to add more vinegar and water (1/3 cup water with healthy splash of vinegar). This did the trick! The remaining color (all blue) absorbed to the yarn and I ended up with a glorious finished product. 


Want to see a demonstration for yourself?  The following video will show you how I did it!