Handpainted Yarn Part Two

Well, I should have totally read the last article I posted about before saying it would explain. It explains what there is to love about handpainted yarns but not how it is painted. So I googled and found a few other links that looked interesting:

How To Hand Paint Roving
Knitty Article on Handpainting With Kool Aid
Cold Pad Method (actually shows using a pastry brush to paint)
Hand Dying Primer from Rosie's Yarn Cellar
Knitter's Review list of books on Hand Dyeing
Examples of Kool Aid Dyed Yarns

Those are just the first few I found using Google. I have dyed with copper in a jar with Ammonia which mad a pale sage green. It took a long time, the color wasn't that thrilling, it stank...probably won't do that again! LOL I have done a couple different methods of KoolAid dyeing and that was really fun. I have also used Gaywool Dyes. I googled and could not find their webpage, just retailers that carry their dye. It's pretty easy to use. I have not tried natural dyeing. There are a lot of chemicals, some very poisonous, involved in that and 1) I don't want to have those around for my kids to be curious about and 2) some of them effect my asthma. I have to be careful with the KoolAid and Gaywool as well. It is very easy to breathe in and aspirate the powder which can be dangerous even without asthma! I have been wondering about trying Jacquard Dyes which Knit Picks is now carrying. There are some beautiful colors which you can purchase in the kit and individually for reasonable prices and they have their "Bare" line of yarn which is made for hand dyeing and you really can't find cheaper than that!

I've also put the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook on my Amazon list because I think it would be fun to learn more about how to dye it so that you don't just have colored yarn but an actual "work of art" when you get done that you can knit into socks or lace or they sky is the limit!

I really think we are living in such a wonderful time in knitting history where we have the leisure to knit what we choose (compared to needing to knit or not have anything warm) what we knit, how we knit it, what tools, patterns and so on that we use. There is so much more out there than even in 1990 when I went back to knitting full on.

And yes, you can waste too much time on the Internet looking at knitting info...that being said, I'm signing off again to go get packages ready to mail for Christmas and to weave in the yarn ends on my projects...not my favorite job! :-)