Yarn dyeing resources?

[untonuggan]

I know this is *slightly* off-topic, but I was wondering if anyone had any links to some good tutorials on dyeing your own yarn. (I have come to realize that if I'm going to support my spinning habit *and* my knitting habit, I better start dyeing my own fibers.) I know I've seen posts over time on dreamwidth, which is part of what sparked my interest in the first place. Where those posts are, I do not know.

Also, any thoughts on natural dyes versus I-don't-even-know-what-the-term-is dyes, books, etc. would be most helpful! Thank you!

^____^

Comments

[twistedchick]

I have been using food coloring and/or Kool-ade and/or natural substances (leaves, nuts, avocado skins) for dyeing wool for several years with good results. If you are interested, write me and I'll tell you more about the process.

The problem (for me) with chemical dyes is that I would need an entirely separate set of pots for them, and I don't have that much room. With the dyes that I use, I can continue to use the pots for cooking.

[indywind]

For reasons like this, all my home dyeing has been with food products --either kool-aid, food dye, or food products that produce dye effects.

Of the later, yellow is a relatively easy color to get, mordanted with alum (powdered salt of aluminum, generally obtainable wherever one finds supplies for canning). Cheap/free things that make nice yellow colour: dry skins of yellow/spanish onions (some supermarkets don't mind if you just clean out all the discarded skins from their bins), dry powdered turmeric (my local Indian grocery sells a sufficient quantity to dye a blanket for about $2). Turmeric is relatively colorfast (for a natural dye) on both animal and plant fibers, and a has interesting bug/features: material dyed with turmeric is much more intensely colored when wet (so that things that look sunny yellow when dry can look citrus orange when wet), and it dyes a deeper color in the presence of mineral salts -- so you could do gradients or painted designs by pre-mordanting the fiber. (I found out the later when a friend overdyed a faded old thrift-store blouse with turmeric, obtained a beautiful bright new-looking blouse... with orange armpits because of the mineral residue from antiperspirant deodorants (which often contain aluminum salts).

[twistedchick]

I've been experimenting with doing dyeing in an old aluminum pot, which seems to take care of the alum question (I don't use aluminum for cooking). Avocado skins, unexpectedly, produce a blush pink.

Also -- I would recommend 'The Book of Herbs' by John Lust (thick modestly priced paperback, usually) as an excellent place to start for everything herbal, including dyeing.

[untonuggan]

TYVM for all the info! ^___^