To Dye For

This was really fun. If you've never done it, but wanted to, I encourage you to try. It's really quite easy. You need wool - or some other animal-protein-fiber, vinegar, water, food-coloring, and a way to heat it all. Oh, and the internet, of course. I used articles here and here, but any google search would give you plenty to work with. Basically, I first wrapped my skein of white Paton's Classic Wool around three stools, and tied it with a piece of yarn in 3 places. I wanted to see if I could make some purple, which I read is tricky, so I first used red on one part. I soaked it in my dye-acid (e.g. vinegar) mixture, then 'steamed' it on my stove. You can get wool hot, apparently; what you don't want to do is get it hot suddenly, nor cool it suddenly, or scramble it up while it's wet. The heat "sets" the dye, apparently. After letting it cool, I rinsed it gently then spooned different dye mixes onto the yarn, mixing and overlapping where I wanted. I didn't really have a plan, and didn't really like how it was looking. I should also mention that this was an amazing project for the girls to practice some color-mixing while learning about primary and secondary colors. This picture is before I went over it again, with some leftover colors. After steaming it again, cooling, and rinsing, I spun it out in my washing machine (JUST spin cycle - no rinsing or water) and hung it to drip-dry over my kitchen sink for a day. The colors lighten up a bit as it dries, and I was left with a delightful spring-time colorway! Then I sat down and started making a diaper cover, of course!