dyeing cotton

[threepointonefour]

I have a massive skein of bernat handicrafter cotton in a natural off white type tone. I am using it to knit up little washcloths for my cousins kids as holiday gifts. I was wondering if anyone who has experience dyeing cotton yarn with tie dye kits has tried painting the dye onto knitted items rather than dip dyeing the unknitted yarn? Or, if that won't work any suggestions for dye methods that might allow me to, for example, make the duck yellow and the water blue on this?

Comments

[jenna_thorn]

I know that Anticraft's melusine is painted with fabric dyes after knitting, but that's on a wool silk blend. The instructions on that project may give you hints as to how to proceed, but if your tye-dye colors are made for cotton, then they should work as well on hand knitted washcloths as machine knit tee-shirts.

However, given what (little) I know about dying, and if the handicrafter cotton is the one I'm thinking of, you may get some color bleed at edges. So long as you know that you are going to get a watercolor blending effect rather than a sharp edged acrylic on canvas effect, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I kind of like the feathering that watercolors give, myself. It's a stylistic decision. A thicker painted dye may give you sharper defenisiton, but I doubt most commerical tye dyes will give you that much control.

It sounds like a fun project, though. Best of luck.

[auntruth]

What she said. Also, generally: If you saturate project in water first, dye will feather more. If you are trying to just dot color (like on the bumps of a ridge of garter) try a dry fabric and a barely-wet brush.