Our church has a Hat Ministry and we provide hats to area homeless shelters. Several skeins of white Red Heart yarn were donated to us. We use Red Heart all the time, so that wasn't the problem. The white yarn was as white hats are impractical for anybody.
I watch the Quirky Monday craftcast and she mentioned using Rit acrylic dye to dye yarn. I decided togive it a try. Chem Knits also has a tutorial on dyeing acrylic yarn. If I ruined the yarn I'd replace it. I bought a bottle of red and blue and started playing.
I'm declaring it a win. I have fallen in love with the colors and am anxious try it again. In the end I just followed the directions on the box with a huge helping of winging it thrown in. In addition to the lovely colors, the yarn softened considerably and is much easier on my hands. The dark skeins are from the 1st round and the lighter colors are from the second time using the same dyepot. The camera just does not show just how delicious that that dark red is.
The dye also dyed the cotton ties and I added a white ball of Peaches and Cream to another red dye pot. I didn't unravel the ball. just put it in the pot and and enough dye solution to come up halfway the ball. I let it sit the recommended amount of time then then turned it over so the undyed top of the ball was in the solution and let it sit overnight with no heat.. Look at this loveliness. This is destined to be a chemo hat.
I also had some black walnut dye left from an earlier play time and decided to try it. I also had some alum mordant and tried a small sample to see what happened. With the unsoaked skeins the dye completely washed off. The mordanted skein turned beige. I don't know that I'll try it again, unless we're given a huge lot of brown yarn and need something to use as a contrast.
All in all I had a fun couple of days. I I'd been this curious in school, I'd have been a much better student!
1 comment:
I really commend people who knit and crochet. Very pretty colors!
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