I have a whole new respect for hand dyers

Posted on | June 6, 2007 | 12 Comments

Before I show my mediocre results, here are some lessons I’ve learned in the past few days:

1.  Dollar Tree ROCKS!  Need a bucket for soaking your yarn?  $1.  Plastic measuring cups for custom mixed colors?  That’ll be $1, please.  Turkey baster for squirting on dye?  One buck.  $100,000 bar to keep your energy up?  TWO for a dollar!  (Yes, I did.  I bought two.  It’s turning into a long week).

2.  The aforementioned plastic measuring cup is not heavy enough to stand upright if you sit it on the table with the turkey baster in it. 

3.  Splattering the dining room floor with Deep Cool Red dye results in much cursing, even at 7:30 a.m. 

4.  Cleaning it all up before SB gets out of the shower and prohibits future dyeing in the dining room = immense relief and one sweaty, flustered dyer.

5.  All this takes TIME!  And it’s WORK!  I’ve dyed roving tons of times, but dyeing yarn is a whole new animal.  You have to wind the skeins into larger skeins to play with the color sequences, just mixing the basic colors can take hours and then you mix more to get specific colors – okay, I’m lying here – this part is really fun because it’s like oooh, look!  I’m an ar-tee-st!  And also a Mad Scientist!  But still.  It takes a LOT of time.  Then you have to figure out how much color to mix to dye 100g of yarn, drain the yarn from its pre-soak, put it on the plastic wrap, apply the dye, make sure the yarn’s evenly coated, wrap it up and toss it in the steamer.  Turn it over halfway through.  Learn to cover the plastic wrap with aluminum foil so condensation doesn’t drip on it and melt the plastic.  So.much.to.learn.  Thank god for superwash yarn. 

CIMG3518-1.JPG

The photograph was my inspiration.  I like the mini-skein I did last night (I got nervous at the last and decided to do a tester 50 yard mini-skein.  Plus, hello?  It was 8:00 and I needed to make dinner) and I have a 100g skein cooling now.  Hopefully it’ll turn out like this one. 

Honestly?  I don’t know how people do this.  When do they find the time?  I’m going to stick with it this week, I may have to skip my guild meeting Saturday and spend the day dyeing, but I want to give this a fair shake.  At least so I can say I tried it and while I can DO it, I may not want to make the sacrifice of time to do it on a professional, for-profit, basis.  But I’ll tell you what.  I’ll never have sticker shock over the price of handpainted yarn again! 

Category: Dyeing

Comments

12 Responses to “I have a whole new respect for hand dyers”

  1. margene
    June 6th, 2007 @ 10:38 am

    Oh yes, dyeing takes loads of time. It might get easier if you can dedicate time and space to it. Your mini-skein looks great!

  2. karrie
    June 6th, 2007 @ 11:23 am

    I was crazy enought to try to make self-striping yarn. Talk about winding and rewinding…. I’ll tell you a secret…. It is worth way more than $26 and the dyers on etsy have that under control.

    I also have a really hard time with superwash. That stuff just sucks up the dye like nobody’s business.

    But your skein looks great! I cant wait to see the rest of your adventures!

  3. Lynn in Tucson
    June 6th, 2007 @ 11:49 am

    Thanks for doing the legwork for the rest of us! (My dyes are on order and the dining room table will be off limits!)
    ;-)

  4. grace
    June 6th, 2007 @ 11:56 am

    Well, your results are gorgeous and we appreciate your labor!

  5. Shannon
    June 6th, 2007 @ 11:57 am

    That skein looks beautiful! I hope they all come out as nice for you! I had no idea it was so much work!

  6. Crazy For Yarn In Alabama: Darlene
    June 6th, 2007 @ 12:43 pm

    Love your test skein!!!! GREAT mix of colors!!

    I haven’t tried dying yarn OR roving….but I would imagine it is like most things…the more you do it the easier it will get!!! Won’t have that stress factor involved!!

    Looking forward to more!!!

  7. Rachel
    June 6th, 2007 @ 1:21 pm

    I agree, dyeing roving is SO much easier than dyeing yarn. That’s why when I do dye yarn, I throw it in a pot of dye. I have no patience for the handpainting thing. The colors of your mini-skein are pretty, and I’m looking forward to seeing the big skein!

  8. Jennifer
    June 6th, 2007 @ 5:24 pm

    Too funny! I mean, you know, in a betteryouthanme kind of way. I think the yarn looks wicked cool. I wish I could be there to play with the colors with you sis!

  9. Susie
    June 6th, 2007 @ 6:30 pm

    On behalf of all the Etsy indie dyers, thank you, you are absolutely correct, and welcome to the club. Your work is exquisite and I foresee you doing a tremendous whole lot of yarn business. It *is* a lot of work, but the end results are *so* worth it, aren’t they?

  10. Emily
    June 7th, 2007 @ 6:16 am

    Just the description made me tired! Way to persevere. My heart was in my throat when the Deep Cool Red was on the floor. I might have actually said out loud: “Oh, Lord. That stuff won’t come OUT!”

  11. Felicia
    June 7th, 2007 @ 8:45 am

    Sounds like quite an adventure! I’ve never trying dyeing yarn myself but it looks like a heap of fun :)

  12. Abby Franquemont
    June 7th, 2007 @ 1:53 pm

    Wow, do you really find yarn is more time-consuming than fiber? I find it to be the other way around, but then a lot of what I dye is kind of high-maintenance fiber.

    You might also consider, btw, hahahahahahahaa, investing in a tube of Reduran. For the dye spill type emergencies. For some surfaces (in addition to my hands, its intended purpose) it does the trick quite nicely. I haven’t dyed on the hardwood floor though. But it used to get easter egg dye out of the old dining room table…