FO Friday: Dye Job
Last Sunday, I took the Kitchen Safe Yarn Dyeing class at Lion Brand Yarn Studio. We were asked to bring two hanks of yarn from a long list of mostly wool Lion Brand yarns. Naturally, I made three hanks from stash yarn.
Side note – It is almost harder to get a ball of yarn into a hank than it is to get a hank of yarn into a skein! I found a great tutorial online about how to tie up and then twist the hank, but I forgot to save the link and now I can’t find it to share 
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Back to the class – Our teacher was Grace. When I signed up, I thought this was going to be a class about using natural, edible dyes, but it was about dyeing with cake gels. That required a bit of expectation adjustment on my part.
I know that your first time working with a dye doesn’t usually result in stellar results, but I’m still a little underwhelmed by these.
The first yarn I worked with was Fishermen's Wool. I attempted to use complementary colors (purple and yellow) with this hank.
Grace thought that perhaps I had not wrung the yarn out enough so the dye didn’t really saturate. In the store, this looked like a big blob of grey, so I’m glad that in intense sunlight (only), there are some hints of color.
My next victim was this small hank of Bernat Lana. I actually like how this one turned out.
I think I had better luck here because the hank was really small (less than 100 yards) and easy to wring out. I also took the most time with this hank.
This was the most difficult hank to work with, since it was significantly larger than the rest.
I purchased this mysterious yet extremely itchy wool on eBay many years ago when I was not that familiar with working with wool yarn. I later used it successfully for several Kool Aid dyeing projects based on this tutorial.
Two change purses made with this same wool, dyed with Kool Aid, circa 2007.
This giant cone of yarn is wound with two strands, so the yarn is fairly thick. It does felt up nicely though.
Back to the class – I tried saturating the entire skein with orange, and then adding different blobs of bright color. The yarn was a bit darker than the other two hanks to start, so I think the color had a different effect. This hank barely had time to set in the crock pot during the class and was bleeding colors when I got home.
I did have a good time learning a new method of kitchen safe dyeing, using both the cake gels and a crock pot. But ultimately, I think the structure of the class is a bit too short. You need about 30 minutes to soak your yarn before dyeing, another 30 minutes to heat your yarn after dyeing, and another 10 or so minutes to get your hanks prepared to soak (since there are several people sharing two sinks). That means with a two hour class, you really only have about 30-45 minutes for the actual dyeing and that the class is hard to end on time since there are still yarns in the crock pot. I felt very rushed and if the class was longer, I probably would have took more time with each hank, and made sure that the water was running clear off each hank before leaving.
I will probably be sticking with the Kool Aid since I’m more familiar with it than the cake gels, I wasn’t amazed by the results in comparison, and I would have to do a bit more traveling to get my hand on the cake gels.
For more Finished Objects, visit Tami’s Amis.
I love my Crock Pot but I feel weird about using it to dye yarn. Kool Aid seems to be the easier and cleanest way to go.
Yeah, I think you are supposed to feel ok about putting cake dye into it since it is “food safe.” Honestly, I felt weirder about putting plastic bags into a crock pot than the dye, Vanessa!
I see what you mean about the dyes not giving you much colour. I haven’t heard of dyeing with cake gel before, but I’m not sure I’ll be trying it! But I suppose you only find these things out by trying :S
Welcome, Laura, and it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I did learn a lot in the class.
Sounds like many lessons learned. even if you weren’t happy with all the results. I’ll leave the dyeing up to those that know and just buy what I like the look of! So much less frustrating!
Hahaha, Minding My Own Stitches. You make an excellent point
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I really like the toned-down colors you got.
Check around for stores like Cash & Carry or Smart & Final that carry restaurant sized food dyes. I have found 16 and 32 ounce bottles for about $3-4. Tt’s a lot more economical than either the drink mixes or cake gels, and way better than paying that much for 4 little 1/2 oz bottles at the supermarket. The only color I buy in a small bottle is black, which is difficult to find exept around Hallowe’en.
Thanks for the tip, KittenWithAWhiplash. I haven’t seen either of those stores in NYC, but I will keep an eye out.
I didn’t know that cake dyes could be used to dye yarn. I had heard of using kool Aid. It looks like Kool Aid gives the yarn brighter colors.
Welcome, Daphne. I think the gels can give a brighter color if you dilute them differently (more expertly) than I did.
I really like the vibrant pastel colors that you achieved with the Bernat Lana yarn.
Thanks so much, autumngeisha and erin!
What a cool class even if you were underwhelmed with the results. I’d love to give hand-dyeing a try but would really love to experiment with botanics. Hey, still a lesson learned, right?
Me, too, Evelyn. I wish I had read the description over a few times because I really thought it was going to be about botanics
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