Berry Punch Yarn

About 10 years ago I did my first yarn dyeing! And probably because of beginner's luck, but it was one of my most successful dye jobs. The yarn was pure merino, I used three saches of instant drinks (a local analogue of Cool Aid) and I knitted a pair of fingerless gloves with it, which are still very much in use and still my most favourite late autumn - early spring gloves.

Husband and I were talking about these gloves on our hike on Vitosha recently and it occurred to me that I had never tried to recreate that dye job. I had some white Yarnart Superwash sock yarn at hand and I thought a pair of socks, matching the gloves was actually a very good idea.

I found my blog posting, read the instructions and went out in search for STEP instant drinks. As we never buy such products, I hadn't followed the market. Unfortunately (for me), it turned out that in the 10 year interval the Red Grapes variety had been discontinued. However, I found another drink by the same manufacturer, which contained two of the three E artificial colours of Red grape - the red and the blue, but it lacked the chocolate brown.

I prepared the yarn and the drinks according to my own instructions and dyed the yarn. Then washed it and let it dry. The resulting skein (shown on the last picture) was a bit redder and paler than the mitts, so I made a light solution of bordeaux and brown acid dyes and dipped the whole skein in it. I am much happier with the overdyed skein (shown on the first picture), but I'll wait until tomorrow and natural light to decide if I want to leave it as it is or deepen further the brown and bordeau shades.

Peacock Socks

Yesterday I finished another pair of socks out of hand-dyed yarn. These are for my husband and they were such fun to knit.

The yarn is Alize Superwash, 75% wool, 25% nylon. I wound about 70 g, presoaked the yarn in warm water with citric acid, then squeezed most of the water out of the skein and hand painted the skein. A couple of pictures of the process of painting - first the lighter colors, then filling in with the darker colors.

For these socks I used a new blue food dye, which turned to be bright peacock blue. Frankly, I was a bit skeptical of the color combination, but it definitely grew on me in the knitting process.

Despite the fact that the skein was 4 m long and I tried to randomize the colors, I ended with them kind of pooling. It's not as drastic as with short skeins but still I would have preferred more dispersed color distribution, as in the wound skein above.
The pattern is my usual recipe, toe up, 64 sts, stockinette stitch with fish lips kiss heels.

Pattern: Peacock Socks (personal pattern)
Yarn: Alize Superwash, hand-dyed, 68 g
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: 9 days

Two-Tone Colorways - New Experiments in Dyeing Wool

My latest colorways in my yarn dyeing experiments - Lollipop and Berries. I used 50 g Alize superwash for each of these dye jobs.

Lollipop was achieved by dipping half of the skein in very diluted yellow wool dye until the solution became transparent (it does! it's like magic how the wool sucks in the dye particles, when there are few of them) and then dipping the second half in very weak red dye solution. Then I fixed the dye in hot water with white vinegar and salt.

For Berries colorway I used the same technology, but instead of wool dyes I dissolved two variants of STEP instant drink (sort of the Bulgarian version of Kool-Aid) - morello cherry (the lighter raspberry color) and red grapes (the bordeaux color).

The sakura tree in our neighborhood is in blossom:

I'm delighted how these dye jobs turned out and I'll probably repeat the raspberry-red colorway in volumes to make a sweater for Gaby, as she loved it.

Meanwhile I'm ready with my light beige cardigan and can't wait for a photo session. But first I have to find decent buttons (I roamed the shops downtown yesterday but nothing appealed to me) and then the weather needs to be sundress-like, as that is what I have in mind for my photos :) So - probably next week, hopefully ...

Step by Step Yarn Dyeing

There comes a time, when a knitter feels fed up with the yarn color range available in her local yarn stores and is tempted to customize her yarn. So I've felt that urge to dye yarn for some time now, I read all about coffee, tea and Kool-Aid yarn dyeing and finally I was ready to go. I used STEP sugar free instant drink, available on our market.
But first a quick word about artificial sweeteners. Kool-Aid, as I gather, is sold sugar and artificial sweetener free, but it's not sold in my country and I couldn't find an instant drink that does not contain artificial sweeteners. Most bloggers on the Internet claim that sugar AND artificial sweeteners are bad for your yarn (for your health, yes, sure, but for your yarn??). So, I gathered all of my school days chemistry knowledge and started thinking. Sugar is carbohydrates. Carbs plus water mean starch and that is glue on your yarn - well, you do not want that for sure. BUT artificial sweeteners are NOT carbohydrates, but chemicals, which give that (artificially, ghrr) sweet taste to your drink and should not make starch with water - ERGO, no problem.
So, I bought four sachets of STEP - Berry Punch and Red Grapes, as I wanted my yarn to be slightly variegated, but not many-colored. My colors are E122 (carmoisine - deep pink red), the basic color of both drinks, E150d (caramel), E155 (chocolate brown), E133 (brilliant blue).
For my 50 g of yarn I used two STEP red grape and one STEP Berry Punch.

Here's my step-by-step process.

1. You'll get best results with 100% animal fibers - merino or other wool, alpaca, etc.
I bought two balls of 50g white pure merino (virgin wool). The first thing to do is to unwind the yarn into a hank. You don't have a niddy-noddly - ha, who has! - just use the four legs of an upturned small table or the backs of two of your kitchen chairs (as I did). Tie the hank at several places with a thread (I used 100% cotton theard to see if cotton would dye too - it didn't at all!)




2. Soak the yarn for 30 min into warm water and liquid soap. This is done to remove all dust particles and grease, that has stuck to your yarn from handling it here and there.

3. Gently rinse the yarn to remove the soap and then soak for another 30 min into a solution of 4 cups of warm water and 1 cup of white vinegar. True, instant drinks contain citric and malic acid, but to be on the safe side - you do need acid to open the fibers of your yarn and fix the color, and I'm not sure if the acid in the drinks is enough.

4. In the meantime prepare the dye (drinks), dissolving the powder with water. The amount of water doesn't matter, the amount of dye does!


5. Gently remove the water from the yarn (do not rinse it, do not twist) - it should be wet, but not dripping. Place it in a microwave-safe vessel. Because these drinks are supposedly health-hazard free (not that our family would drink such artificial s..t), I was not worried to use my cooking casserole. Now is the interesting part. Use your imagination and pour the dyes as you wish them to appear on your yarn. Gently press the yarn to distribute the dye. Cover with enough water (I used the same vinegar-water solution, in which the yarn had soaked before).


6. Cover with the lid and place it in the microwave oven, set it to the max heat and cook the yarn for 2 min, let it rest for 2 min. Repeat these 2 min sessions 3-4 more times (I did a total of 4 repeats, 8 min total heating time). Do not exceed 15 min and be careful not to boil the water, otherwise the yarn will felt.

7. Leave the yarn in the casserole to cool. The water should be clear and all the dye should be in the yarn.

8. After the yarn has cooled enough (for at least 2 hours), wash it with warm water (the same temperature as the yarn) and liquid soap (Perwoll in my case). I soaked it afterward in warm water with a softener too.

9. Place the hank on a hanger and leave it to dry.


10. Wind it into a ball. I found a method, using a toilet paper roll and it's miraculously comfortable to use. Knit something nice and wear it!





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