more ?s on crock pot dyeing

17 years ago

We took a little daytrip yesterday, and I came upon a sale on white wool yarn....pretty serendipitous, I thought, so I took it as a sign and bought 6 skeins....bit ones. They will have to be divided up and put into manageable loose skeins to do in the crockpot, but I was wondering.... would it be best to make the circumference of the skeins about the same circumference as the crock pot? If longer I'd have to loop it around and I thought that might alter how the color is taken up, and where. If around the same circumference I'm going to have to do it in quite a few batches, but figured if I mixed the koolade into the same amounts of boilig water, and then timed how long before I turned it off, and then how long I let it sit before removing from the crock pot, the results, dyewise, would be pretty much the same....calicokitty....any thoughts on this, or further suggestions? I bought enough wool to make a big sweater, so the same process is going to have to be repeated a good many times, I'd think. When you did it, how 'thick' was your skein...just approximately.

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Comments (5)

calicokitty
17 years ago
Hi Sandra
When I prepared to dye mine, I looped my yarn around 2 chairs set about 3 feet apart. I had only a 100 grams of yarn, but I got dizzy walking around those chairs! The end result was probably about 40 strands thick. I purposely laid mine willy-nilly into the crockpot because I wanted the colors to be random.
Are you going to dye yours a solid color or a mix?
minnie_tx
17 years ago
never heard of crock pot dyeing interesting tell us more!!
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sandra_ferguson
Original Author
17 years ago
Minnie....go down a few posts and read my first questions and some of the answers.... dyeing yarn with koolade.
Calicokitty....I plan to use various blues and purples, but wondered if it would be better to use skeins of smaller circumference.......I have an antique 'clock winder' that makes skeining yarn easy, that I often use, but just wondered if it'd be better to make smaller ones. I don't care if all the skeins are the same...and, they wont be..... but would like continuity of hue...thus, I'll be careful to time the different phases of the process.
calicokitty
17 years ago
I agree that you should use smaller skeins. You'll want to be able to totally submerge your yarn if you want to get those deep colors throughout.

Some of my strands that were close to the surface took up just a hint of color. But that was the look I wanted- lots of changes from dark to light.

Good luck! I'm looking forward to hearing about, and hopefully seeing pictures, of the end result.
sandra_ferguson
Original Author
17 years ago
Calicokitty.....I will surely post my dyeing results, but it won't be for a while...sounds a good fall/winter sort of project. Right now I'm trying to finish up a summerweight quilt, and am knitting a jacket. This will be the first one I've made in pieces - everything I've done before has been 'in the round', and I've always felt that I need, for some reason, to knit something in pieces, too. Don't ask why...it's as if I'm not REALLY knitting.. I know that's silly and am fairly sure I'll be glad to get back to knitting in the round after I get this out of my system! lol