Hand dyed yarn using guide

When you enjoy yarn crafting, you quickly accumulating a number of projects that may get placed in a storage container or strung on your furniture and given to friends. The same colors can easily get boring. Or maybe you’re looking for something so specific that it’s difficult for you to find in stores or even online. That’s when hand dyeing yard can come in handy. However, before you start hand dyeing yarn, you should the process as well as how to use hand dyed yarn. 

Getting Ready to Hand Dye Yarn

Firstly, you’ll want to pick the type of yarn you want to dye. Cotton doesn’t take dye well. Instead, you should consider dyeing mohair, merino, or alpaca, which all take dye well.  

Next, you’ll want to choose the dye. You could make it simple and opt for a dye found in stores, but these are often similar to the others of the yarns already sold in stores. If you choose this route, you may want to mix multiple colors and get creative. Once you find the combination you like, you can dye all your yarn with that mix. 

On the other hand, you may want to consider dyeing your yarn with natural ingredients, such as blueberries, raspberries, or red onion peals, among other options. 

Then, you need to find a dye bath, which is something that’s big enough to dye all your yarn and won’t stain easily from the dye. You also want a tub that’s large enough to stir your yarn around with. It should be heat resistant, which will be explained in the next section. 

It’s now time to prepare your yarn. At this point, you want to gradually unravel the yarn and wrap it into an open circle. This step ensures that each strand receives an equal share of dye. 

Start the Dyeing Process 

You have to be careful when you dye yarn, especially if your fiber is alpaca, goat, or sheep’s wool. However, before you start the process, you should read what type of yarn it is. If it’s superwash, you’ll have no problem washing the material, but you’ll still need to make sure that the yarn remains untangled. 

Firstly, you want to fill a clean container with enough cold water to soak your yarn in. Depending on the type of dye, you may need to add vinegar into the water for the soak. Once prepared, you should leave the yarn soak in the water for 20 minutes. It’s now time to create the dye bath. After preparation, you’ll want to place the yarn into the dye and let it soak. 

You then need to heat your dye bath. You could do this on the stovetop or in a crockpot. Heat your water slowly until it almost reaches a boil. Immediately, you need to stir the dye around, so all portions of the yarn are the same color. 

Finally, you remove the dye bath from the heat and proceed to let it cool down. As soon as your dye reaches room temperature, you want to use cold water to rinse it and then let it dry. 

If it doesn’t look even, you may want to start over and redye your yarn. 

Feel free to get crazy and make more colors of yarn if desired. 

What to Use Your Hand Dyed Yarn For 

We explained one of several hand dyeing yarn techniques above. You may want to conduct more research if you’d like to use multiple colors of dye on one type of yarn. 

Once you have the yarn you desire, though, you can finally use it to make creative projects. You can match it with store-bought yarns, or you can make other colors of yarn and combine the two. The hand dyed yarn can actually be used along with multiple other colors. Plus, how to use hand dyed yarn could include any yarn project you want. 

How to Care for Hand Dyed Yarn Products 

You’ll need to make sure you read the instructions on how to care for your hand dyed project. You want to make sure that your project won’t fade or bleed. 

When you hand dye yarn, you can use the finished product for a variety of projects. For instance, you may knit or crochet with the yarn. You could also finger or toe weave. Basically, any type of project that uses the type of yarn you dyed, you can use this yarn for. It will hold up just like store-bought yarn as long as you care for it properly.  Plus, in terms of how to use hand dyed yarn, it’s versatile.