Vintage Grrl About Town » Gradient Yarn Dye

Gradient Yarn Dye

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Prepare your yarn:-
Prepare your yarn for dyeing by hanking it into the length you want. This will determine how long your colour changes are.Soak hank in water/vinegar (I use 50/50) mix with a dash of wool wash. Make sure you’ve squeezed all the air out of the wool, or there will be places the dye won’t take as well. Leave for at LEAST 30 minutes.

Prepare your dyes:-
Typically 100g of yarn will take about 20-30ml of liquid food colouring, 150ml of vinegar and 100ml of water.When preparing a colour that I am likely to use again, I will mix a “bulk” lot of about 40-70ml of dye, which I mix with the 150ml of vinegar. This is my dye base.For this type of dyeing, I’ll use about 10-20ml of the dye base, and gradually add water to it. The amount of water you start with will depend on your base colour, some will be much darker to begin with, and need more water. With the purple, I started with adding 100ml of water, and then adjusted the dilution as I went along.Don’t forget to wear gloves!
Dye your yarn:-
Gently squeeze excess fluids out of the yarn, you can reuse this mix for future dyeing. Lay yarn out on work surface (I use a melamine serving tray) so that the risk of cross dyeing is minimal.
Starting at one end, slowly add colour, making sure each squirt of dye mix is fully absorbed before adding more. Saturate the end with colour, ensuring all the yarn is dyed.	[singlepic id="104" w="150" h="" mode="watermark" float="" ] [singlepic id="103" w="" h="110" mode="watermark" float="" ]
Add some water to your dye, I use about 30-150ml per colour change, your choice of base colour will be your main contributing factor for how much water you will need to add for each section. Dye next 5-10cm of yarn, making sure all the yarn has been coloured.
Repeat the above step each 5-10cm, depending on how you want your gradient to look. Leave the last 5-10cm undyed.	[singlepic id="107" w="150" h="" mode="watermark" float="right" ]
By this time, there will be a fair amount of clearish liquid in your tray. Add a small amount of dye from the bottle onto the tray and use your yarn to soak it up. This will give you a lighter ‘almost uncoloured’ look.	[singlepic id="97" w="150" h="" mode="watermark" float="right" ]
Squirt any remaining dye randomly over your skein and soak up as much colour as you can.
Picking the skein up by the light end, gently squeeze excess fluid out from top to bottom.
Arrange hank in microwave steam dish, being careful to make sure the shades don’t touch.
Place lid on dish, and microwave on high for 2 minutes, allow to rest for 2-5 minutes, cook for another 2 minutes, rest, cook etc, Repeat until yarn has ‘cooked’ for 8-10 minutes.
Allow to cool completely, and then soak in cool water with some detergent for about 15 minutes. Squeeze excess water from hank, and hang to dry.
Tah-Dah!