With all that yarn I’ve spun, I was wondering what to do with it. A recent Knitting Guild meeting featured Fair Isle knitting, which involves two or more colors of yarn to make pretty patterns while you’re knitting.

I have a ton of yarn, having spun 12 pounds of Romney roving last winter (with 17 pounds in queue for this winter), so I’m not about to buy yarn for this. Thus, Dye Day.

This actually occurred over the course of two days, exclusive of drying, as it’s been raining for the past few days.

The “acid” dyes I use set, or attach to the fiber, with heat, and acid acts as a mordant, a chemical that aids the reaction. In my case, I’m using acetic acid as my mordant. Better known as vinegar, this particular acid is dirt cheap at what, two bucks or so a gallon? I also used about a teaspoon of Synthrapol, a surfactant that helps the dyes disperse.

The dyeing was done in two batches as the red was an afterthought (have you met me?) The blue came first, and other than adjusting the intensity by simply increasing the amount of dye, was super easy. The dye completely “exhausted”, meaning that all of the dye was absorbed by the fibers and the dye bath was clear. It’s almost magical when you see it.

OK, I’ll also admit that the second skein of blue was an afterthought as well, so the dye pot was too small. It’s my smallest (of course I have more than one…) and the yarn was rather crowded, leading to an uneven dispersion of dye. The skeins are somewhat variegated but I can certainly live with imperfection.

The red dye was a pain in the patoot! I have (and ultimately used) four colors of red. The first go was too orangey, so I tried another, adding some red but not overpowering the orange. Two more variations of “red” got me close to what I wanted.

It’s easy to see that the yarn is less crowded for the red dye, and the color, once I got there, was much more evenly distributed. The red dye did not completely exhaust, so a little bit of orange water (like a tablespoon of Tang in a gallon of water) went down the drain, and the yarn rinsed clean.

While not quite dry, here are the results:

Overall, I’m pretty pleased. Of course, the bar was low because it’s all just an experiment.

Happy Spinning!