Nope, instead I've been indulging a different curiosity. Namely, dyeing protein fiber with Wilton's food colors and citric acid. Since I'd already seen how extremely addicting dyeing with Kool-Aid could be I did the math (OK, more like fuzzy pseudo-math) and figured it would get pretty damned expensive to dye anything more than a mini skein at a time. Plus I didn't feel like scrounging through all my neighborhood stores for those elusive Kool-Aid flavors I needed.
After a quick cyber-trip to Wilton's and then Dharma Trading I sat back to gleefully await my goodies while perusing the multitude of informative sites on dyeing with food dyes.
Since there are so many great sites to learn this technique from (and their explanations would probably be more comprehensive than mine) I'll just throw a few out there:
1. Ravelry (Specifically the What a Kool Way to Dye and the Dying to Learn Dye groups.)
2. Great tutorial on Sky's Keep on Knitting in the Free World blog.
3. Allena Jackson wrote a very helpful article for Knitty.com all about mixing colors with food dye.
But back to my story...
When my stuff came in the mail I was gung-ho to get started. Lucky for me I was a Dharma Trading virgin and got a free gift with my order- a silk scarf! Add to that a skein of Cascade 220 wool from an older project and I was set to test a couple different techniques.
Wool yarn and silk scarf soaking in water & citric acid.
Here's a picture after my first round of dyeing. The silk scarf was dyed with Wilton's teal while scrunched up in a pie dish. The scrunching made beautiful water color type markings when the color settled in the lower areas during dyeing, but the color was a little bright for my taste.
The skein in the picture is actually on its third round of dyeing. I first dyed the skein with Wilton's black. There was some separation of the colors so it turned a gray color with variations of green and even purple. I had wanted a gray base so I could try for a deep maroon color with an overdye so I figured some muted variations wouldn't make much of a difference.
Next, I overdyed with Wilton's burgundy. That made it more of a mauve. Definitely not maroon, but I thought it would make a good base for a dusty lavender (which is much more "me" than a rosy shade) so I overdyed yet again with Wilton's sky blue. Now it had morphed into a pretty decent lavender, but because of my inattention during the process there were a few spots that never saw the black or burgundy dye and instead got a full dose of sky blue.
Most people would have called it a day here, but I got curious about fixing some of my 'happy little mistakes' and perhaps turning some Lyzard-unfriendly colors into something that might become a new accessory. I figured if I goofed and totally ruined anything I'd just chuck the whole mess and chalk it up to experience.
The final dye.For the silk scarf I thought I could tone down the bright teal with some variation. I mixed up some grass green and some royal blue (separately) and spooned them over the ends and the middle, respectively. Then I wrapped the whole mess up in saran wrap and threw it in a dish with some water to nuke, and nuke, and nuke again. The royal blue turned out to be a very vibrant peacock blue and the green only seemed to take in the lighter areas leaving sparse splotches across the ends. It's still very pretty, but too bright for the likes of me. Luckily my niece adores it.
As for the skein... Fourth time's the charm, right? I went all out with the dyes this time and mixed my own purple with red-red and sky blue in a super-concentrated mix. I also acquired a larger container that held more water so the yarn wouldn't crowd itself and leave large undyed patches. Obviously it was a success! A deep and satisfying purple. And it only took two whole evenings, four separate dyeing sessions and multicolored hands.
-Lyzard
