Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Hand Dyed Cotton First Timer

Yep! I did it. I finally dyed something other than wool. I purchased a hugenormous hank of natural, undyed cotton yarn and decided to custom dye it myself for my crocheted booties. I ordered my dyes from Dharma Trading Co. and picked up the Synthrapol and Soda Ash from a dye shop based in Toronto called G&S Dye. I could have picked up everything at G&S but I realised that only after I ordered my dyes from Dharma. That's okay, its always good to have multiple sources. I didn't get everything at Dharma anyway because shipping became astronomically expensive.

I went to Dharma's website for how to do the dyeing, but I skipped the washing machine and just used a big plastic bowl set up in my bathtub. I left my cotton to soak for 1 hour in the dye solution.

Naturally undyed cotton. Took out out of the giant hank, wound it into giant yarn cakes then back to equally divided hank format. Phew! I chose three main colours and one contrasting colour for the dyes.

Here are all the skeins drying in the afternoon sun on the line.

Up close. The colours appear very intense as the skeins are still wet, but they lightened a bit after they were totally dry.


I am super happy with the way they turned out. They all were not the colours I was expecting! But they're amazing anyway.




The orange booties win for my favourite colour. LOVE!
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