Handpainting Yarn

I tend to prefer space dyeing to handpainting yarn because of the ease of the technique. But nothing can replace the precision you can acheive when you handpaint a skein of yarn.

What you can't dye with food coloring

If I got a dime for each time someone asked me about dyeing acrylic or cotton with food coloring/Kool Aid I would be a rich woman. I decided to answer these questions once and for all by creating a video showing people what you cannot dye with food coloring.

Surprisingly, the 100% organic (unbleached) cotton that I used in this tutorial did pick up some color. I am not sure how colorfast it is, but there are certainly more efficient ways to dye cotton vibrant colors. (Compare the cotton color to the 100% wool!)

Dyeing Yarn with Tea

You can dye yarn with so many different kitchen products. The following tutorial will take you through dyeing 100% wool yarn with three different types of tea.

Cake Dyeing

What happens when you wind yarn into a cake (ball) first and then stick it in the dyebath? Check out this great step by step article to find out!

Dyeing Wool/Acrylic Blends

I started dyeing yarn because I had a ton of 20% wool/80% acrylic remaining from my sampler afghan. In response to many questions I received about dyeing acrylic on YouTube, I decided to create the following video:

P.S. You cannot dye 100% acrylic using these method!

Formulas for Dyeing Yarn with Food Coloring

Want to know how to mix colors? The website DyeYourYarn.com has come up with many different color recipes based off of KoolAid and food coloring. I like the McCormick Dye Formulas because this is the dye I use the most frequently. I will have to refer to this website in the future as I am planning out my colors.

Yarn Museum

Welcome to the Yarn Museum honoring the artestry and beauty of handspun yarn. This is one of the most fun websites I've come across in a long time. There are some amazing galleries of handspun yarns, and there are ways that you can submit your own images to particular galleries.

Collage of Dyed Yarns

What a beautiful image of hand dyed yarns!

Photo credit Franziska Geiser via a Creative Commons License

Dyeing Yarn - Purple Separation

When I was first researching dyeing yarn with food coloring, I learned that purple was a hard color to dye because the red and blue dyes will separate and absorb at different rates. But in all of my attempts, I always came out with all over purple color. I decided to test this color separation in the following video:

Beautiful Scarf

This wavy knit scarf is so beautiful, I had to mention it on Knitting Project of the Day. I love the way the pattern of the scarf really shows off the colorway of the yarn. This would be a great way to showcase your hand dyed yarn (especially if the repeats are very long.)

Photo credit Noricum via a Creative Commons License

For the record, I also happen to love that it was photographed on what appears to be a patchwork blue jean quilt!

Dyeing Yarn with Kool-Aid Video Tutorial

Have you ever wanted to try dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid? (Warning, once you start dyeing yarn at home it becomes hard to stop!) I have been dyeing yarn this way for many years, but only recently have I started creating tutorials about it. I hope that you come to love it as much as I do!

Dyeing Yarn with KoolAid

I wanted to followup yesterday's KPOTD with the tutorials I have written that were inspired from peasoup.

I wrote a dyeing yarn with kool-aid tutorial that summarizes what I learned from multiple yarn dyeing experiments. There are many different methods for hand dyeing yarn, but the tutorial focuses on hand-painting yarn with a combination of Kool-Aid and food coloring to create a rainbow yarn colorway.

Many people have asked me where to find different Kool-Aid packets. If you cannot find Kool-Aid, you can substitute any sugarless drink mix or just use food coloring and vinegar.

How to dye yarn with food colouring (and small children)

In the early spring of 2009, I decided to try dyeing yarn for the first time. One of the best dyeing yarn at home tutorials I found came from a blog called Pea Soup. I hope that you enjoy this delightful description of a first attempt with dyeing yarn at home with her children.

A picture from my first dyeing project inspired by the author of Pea Soup.

Sheeping Beauty

Today I am going to feature an Etsy seller (Sheeping Beauty), because her shop is full of products I wish I could create.

I've admired handspun skeins of yarn for a long time, not just because of the craft itself, but of the colorways that you can create with hand plyed yarn. Since I've started dyeing yarn, the effect of hand spun yarn is something I've been dyeing (haha) to acheive. I even researched custom spinners to see if I would be able to find someone to spin wool that I dyed for me.

Sheeping Beauty, I really admire your craft and the beautiful yarns you've created.