2019 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Alright, you lot - what have you done to me???

I had an hour to kill this morning, in an area with a choice of CarpetRite, Harveys for Beds, Tapi carpets and Oak Furniture Land.... and Hobbycraft... and I had a 20% off voucher for Hobbycraft...!

I bought a small tube of food colouring for dyeing wool in the microwave, and a notebook.

No yarn.
No fabric.

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

CAFCGirl wrote: »

Tell me more about this dyeing PLEASE!!!!!!! :j :j

I only do basic stuff but it's very easy and totally colour-fast if you do it right, hurrah!

Only works on animal fibres, so wool and silk, but NOT cotton or synthetics. No idea about the hairier sorts like mohair or alpaca, etc.

But wool and silk, really good - if it's a blend, it won't dye the non-wool/silk fibres.

I use a lidded pyrex dish, but you could just use a bowl and keep on putting clingfilm over. The dye will stain plastic, of course.

Start with loosely-wound wool, or hanks of it tied not too tightly. Soak the wool for at least 30 minutes in white vinegar (Tesco is cheapest per 100ml - "distilled vinegar" they call it). Take the wool out and put it on a plate temporarily. Add food colouring to the vinegar left in the dish - this is the tricky bit. You can always re-dye the yarn if it's too pal so definitely start with less and work up to more! And a little goes a very very long way. I use the Pro-Gel concentrate from Hobbycraft. Mix it really well as tiny blobs left will give patchy results.Add a bit of water if you want, to get enough liquid to cover the yarn, or you can keep it all vinegar. Put the yarn back in and squodge it about with a couple of forks, turn it over, get it well soaked.

Now you want to heat it BUT not boil it. If you boil the liquid then a) you'll shrink the yarn to a felted mess and b) you'll be wiping brightly coloured drips out of your microwave forever. Ask me how I know this...

I ping it for 1-2 minutes and leave it for 5-10 minutes in between. Take the lid off and turn the yarn over once in a while. You want it to be the kind of temp where if you dip your finger in, you take it out again quickly - too hot for washing-up, basically!

Gradually you'll see the liquid turn clear, which means the yarn has taken up all of the colour. If the yarn is still too pale for your liking, then lift the yarn out and add more food colouring to the liquid, and repeat.

Once it's the colour you want, pour off the liquid (I actually keep it and re-use it, so long as it's totally clear. It's purpose is as an acid, and as I use neat vinegar, I can't see why not re-use).

This is the bit where you make the dye washable and fast: rinsing.

I put the pyrex dish in the sink and add hand-hot water. Gradually over 10 minutes or so I add a bit of cold water at a time, so the water *gradually* changes temperature. If you put hot wool into cold water, it'll shrink, and vice versa. So just add a bit of cold repeatedly til you have cold water. Squidge the yarn gently and then tip the water away and re-fill the dish with clean water. Keep doing this til no more colour comes out. I usually then do cold water and a squirt of Ecover washing-up liquid, and let it soak 20 minutes and a load more dye comes out, and then rinse some more.

You then have washable, dye-fast yarn Let it dry and then use it.

Sometimes it feels a bit coarser after dyeing - you can use a 1/2tsp of glycerine in the final rinse if you like.

I only do bright cheerful primary colours - if you're more adventurous than me, you can do gradient yarns, or you could mix your own shades from 2 or 3 food colourings. But I enjoy the bright leaf-green and deep rich orange and vivid blue colours, so I haven't gone into the more complicated things.

Basically, only wool or silk will take up the dye; pre-soak in vinegar; don't boil it, just keep it good and hot; don't temp-shock it, always change temperature gradually; rinse and rinse and rinse.

Experiment!

Definitely experiment prior to using any really irreplaceable or fancy yarn!