Yarn Dyeing

I'm really excited about this.  For months I've been seeing pictures on Ravelry of people who dye yarn with everything from Kool-Aid to food coloring and I've really wanted to try it.  I finally decided to do it.  A couple of notes: Ravelry is a sort of social network for yarn crafters - knitters, crocheters, spinners, weavers, and dyers.  There are all kinds of people and companies available for help and information.  I think I spend more time there than anywhere.  One of the groups I joined does monthly Harry Potter based challenges and classes.  Both of these dyeing experiments were for that group.

The first experiment was with wine (the challenge was to use tea, coffee, or wine to dye yarn).  I had a couple of bottles of wine that didn't weather the Summer very well and turned to vinegar (I really need to get a wine cooler for those couple of weeks that get seriously hot).  I didn't want to waste it and it was more than I could cook with in a very long time, so I tried the dyeing.  I used organic cotton yarn and pinot noir.

Ingredients:

Boiling wine + Yarn:

End Results:

I don't really love how it turned out.  I think a wool might have been better and also a wine with a little more color saturation, like a burgandy.  Lessons learned.

The second challenge I dyed for was to dye in a Fall color.  I used turmeric on an angora/bamboo yarn.  This one turned out much better.

Ingredients:

Boiling water + Turmeric + Yarn:

FInished Product with my inspiration (leaves from the tree outside my office):

I really enjoyed the experience and I will definitely be trying some other techniques.