Yarn Dying Experiments

I have always wanted to play with yarn dying, and in the last few months, with the help of my friends, Melissa and Kate, I've had two opportunities to do just that.

The first dye day was with Melissa in July. I brought three yarns I wanted to experiment with.

The first one was a free skein of lace weight that I got with a Knit Picks order, and it looks better in the photograph than it did in real life. The color reminded me of dirty dishwater—probably why they were giving it away for free—so any other color would be an improvement.

Here's what the yarn looked like after a dip in the dye bath. Much better, right? I call this colorway Radish.

The second yarn, a skein of Beaverslide Dry Goods 2-ply sport weight that was a KAL prize, was a much prettier shade of cream.

But I don't wear that color much, so we dyed the skein blue.

The last skein of yarn, a wool-silk blend that I got in a swap, was a nice light green.

While this colorway was certainly pretty, I wanted a deeper green. This was my first try at over-dyeing it:

It was better, but not quite what I had in mind. Melissa thought the silk content probably took the dye differently and muted the color. So we tried again a couple months later, using much more dye to make a deep green.

As you can see, that good long soak in green dye turned out a spectacular deep green skein.

Kate joined us at our second dye day in September, and the three of us each dyed a sock blank. We had such a fun time, and I love the final result!

Here is what the sock blank looks like knit up:

While two times don't make me an expert or an indie dyer, I may have to try some more yarn dying experiments sometime soon, and I'll share the results when I do.