Back to dyeing

I really wanted to make something cool out of my Herdwick and white wool yarn. I was inspired by a few youtube videos that I found on ChemKnitsBlog channel. After winding my yarn into loosely wound balls, I let them soak in a vinegar-water bath for about half an hour.

Mixing up a batch of black cherry, lemon lime, and grape Kool-aid with several drops of black food coloring, I partially submerged my yarn into the liquid. Unfortunately, the liquid level came above the midpoint, so I was going to end up with more than half of my yarn being red. Time to cook in the microwave...

After the yarn had absorbed most of the color and cooled for an hour, I then mixed up a batch of mixed berry and lemon lime Kool-aid, with some black and green food color, and flipped the balls over and cooked them again.






I really like how the yarn turned out, with one exception:
Uh.... it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! :-O

I don't much get into holiday themed items, and I don't think my spinning is good enough to try to sell my yarn yet, so I had to perform further experiments with it. Yes, I know, it is still wet, but as the dye tends to BRIGHTEN as it dries, I was afraid the effect would be even worse!!!

I did not wind the skeins back into balls because I had already obtained the overall effect I was trying for, just not quite the color scheme I was after. I mixed up a batch of mixed berry, peach mango, black, and blue, and dunked all of the skeins in. After cooking and rinsing, I think I was successfully able to get rid of the Christmas-y feel.

Once the skeins are dry, I will wind them back into balls and see what I have.