Dying Yarn With Food Coloring-Updated

 When I first started dying yarn I did a blog post on dying yarn with food coloring. I have since learned ALOT and wanted to do an updated post.

So first off, I only use food safe dyes as I dye in my home kitchen! Dying with food safe dyes is not as predictable as acid dyes, but still very repeatable if you take careful notes (which I do not usually do haha). I really like playing with colors and dyes and seeing what happens. Sometimes if I really like a colorway I will try and replicate it and have been successful a few times! I also do not need all the yarn I dye so I do sell some in my shop Skein Appeal.

Haunted- Available at Skein Appeal

When I first started dying with food coloring I was using vinegar and gel food coloring. I now use neither lol, I use citric acid powder and liquid gel food coloring. I switched to citric acid because a medium sized bag of it lasts forever in comparison to vinegar and you cannot smell it!!! I switched to liquid gel food coloring because the regular gel food coloring kept drying out on me super fast! What I also really like about the liquid gel food coloring is that it is easier to keep track of how much I added to get a certain color based on how many drops i've added. You can also use the color right chart tool by Wiltons to estimate how many drops you should combine of which colors to create a new colors not in the kit. 

I use a roasting pan I got from amazon as my dye bath, I usually place my yarn I want to dye into that with a little water to soak for about 30 mins prior to dying. I have also tried not pre-soaking the yarn at all and rather placing the dry yarn into the dye bath and let it soak up the water/dye gradually. There really are not hard and fast rules when it comes to dying so experiment! I also like to sometimes leave the hank twisted up, dye it then near the end un-twist it and let those inner white parts soak up any remaining dye.  Sometimes I already have the dye in the bath other times I put the bare yarn in first and then pour the dye over it. I usually mix the dye with some water in some squeeze bottles then pour/squirt it over. Recently I have also used koolaid to do some speckling!!

So tools you will need for some at home dying experiments are:

I got basically everything except the yarn on amazon! As far as yarn I have purchased from dyer supplier, acme fibres & knitpicks. 

Once the yarn has soaked up all the dye and cooled a bit I like to transfer it to the sink and rinse it with some dish soap until the water runs clear. I then wrap it in a towel to soak up some of the excess water, like you do when blocking, and then hang it to dry!

Have you every tried dying your own yarn?

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