Hand Painting Yarn

I hand painted a skein of yarn about 2 weeks ago. This is the bare skein of wool that I purchased with my Knit Picks order. Now I wish I had bought more! It was so much fun to dye this up! I took a few photos to show you the process I follow when dyeing yarn.

First I soak the skein in lukewarm water for a half hour, or until it is thoroughly saturated. Meanwhile I mix up my dye colors. I use the Greener shades Dyes for all my fiber and yarn dyeing. I don't have a scale for measuring the powder out, so I can't reproduce exact colors of something I have dyed in the past right now, although I can come close. Greener Shades has a group on Ravelry that has lots of useful information if you are interested in trying out these dyes. There is also quite a bit of info on their webpage.

I seem to be missing my photo of the dyeing itself, so we'll skip on ahead to the steaming. Once I have hand-painted the yarn, I spray it down with either white vinegar or citric acid. This, along with the steaming, helps to set the color. Then I wrap it up in plastic wrap and pop it in a pot of hot water. I normally steam the yarn for about 8 to 10 minutes.

After taking it out of the pot I lay it on a towel and peel the plastic wrap open so the yarn can cool. Once it is cool to the touch, I rinse it out in lukewarm tap water then put it somewhere to dry.

This yarn turned out beautifully, and looks quite stunning knit up!