G. Knerd

This weekend, I decided to finally bust out the crock pot and do some yarn dyeing.  I’ve dyed yarn once or twice before, and I’ve always enjoyed it, but I’ve never really been serious about it.

I think that’s about to change.

It all started with some nice white wool yarn, which I wound into super long skeins.  I’m not exactly sure why I decided to hang them from the curtain rod, but Monkey Kitty sure was curious.

After taunting the cat a bit more, I plopped the yarn into the crock pot and added some water and vinegar.  Turns out, my crock pot will hold about 450 yards of worsted weight yarn (although it would probably prefer less, the crock pod doesn’t actually get a vote in this scenario).

After letting it get sufficiently warm and steamy, I decided to start with some blue dye, in a relatively random pattern.

Then I added some green dye, because green is the best color.  Anyone who says different is lying or delusional.

Then I did something that anyone who knows anything about wool or dyeing or washing sweaters would tell you was wrong: I took a chopstick and I gave it a good stir.  I didn’t like the white spots in the original color placement, and I didn’t want such distinct color patches either.  Plus, I figured this would be a good experiment to figure out if it was really that easy to just felt yarn.  Worst case scenario, I was out a couple of skeins.

Then, I added some yellow.  Because, you know, I’m never satisfied.

I also totally stirred it again after that.  And then I let the yarn soak up the dye in its nice warm bath.

What happened next?  I’m going to save that for next time.  Here’s a hint, though: what do you think I could make from 450 yards of worsted weight awesome?