dying, part 2!

So I finally got around to dying one hank today. Since it was my first time, I decided to take it easy and do just one hank, following the microwavable directions found here. I chose 5 colors from the Ateco set I have, a green, blue, yellow, teal and aqua.


First, I soaked the yarn for about 30 min in water with vinegar. Then I squeezed the water/vinegar out and put it in a pyrex dish. I mixed the dye, about 5 big drops (it's kind of thick so it was more like globs) in about 1/2 cup of water. I started out with the yellow, and sort of went on either side of the yellow with the next color, and so on until I got to the last color at the end. I really saturated the yarn, made sure it was soaked through, but not so wet that the colors would bleed too much. I covered it with plastic wrap and microwaved it for 2 and a half minutes, let it rest for two minutes, and nuked it again for 2 and a half minutes. I let it sit until I could touch the pyrex dish, and picked up the yarn to dry over my kitchen sink. I was so excited when I picked up the yarn, because TONS of water was coming from the yarn and it was CLEAR! After it dried mostly, I rinsed it again until the water was completely clear, and hung it up outside to dry.


It's still not dry, so I don't have a pic. of the newly dyed/wound yarn, but I will get to that tomorrow! Here are the pics I took this morning.



All in all, I'm pleased! The colors are prettty good, not too dark but not too pastel, and I think I'm definitely going to try this again! Just with a little less water to dye ratio for a little richer colors.