Welcome to the amateur dyeing adventures of me, Regan, one of the photographers for Knit Picks! I want to preface this by saying that this is not a tutorial. I’m just having a fun time experimenting! So join the ride as I create a mess of my kitchen.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Bare-1024x683.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
Muse // Woodland Tweed // Twill
For this journey I used Knit Picks Bare Muse, Bare Twill, and Bare Woodland Tweed. I’ve recently discovered that I love 100% Merino wool, so Twill and Muse have been two of my favorite yarns. I chose Woodland Tweed so I had some variation from my obvious favoritism. All in all, I had six of each yarn (18 total) to experiment with.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Setup_Combined.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&resize=640%2C249&ssl=1)
I’ve had a small amount of experience with natural dyeing, but this is my first time on a large scale. To aid in my adventure I used the Earthhues Botanical Dye Kit. The kit comes with everything one might need, which includes:
- Cutch – a coffee, caramel color
- Madder – burnt orange
- Cochineal – red
- Logwood – purple
- Osage – yellow/red
- Mordants: alum, cream of tartar, and calcium carbonate
- Iron (used with logwood)
- Pair of gloves
- Mask (to protect from all the powders)
The kit also comes with instructions and different ratios to achieve specific colors. However, me being me, I decided to completely disregard instructions and wing this entire operation.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Setup_03-1024x584.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
My two pot setup
I definitely didn’t want to use a pot I cook with for this, so I used two pots I found at Goodwill. That way, these can get as messy as needed and can stay designated for dyeing-specific needs. This goes for any other tools I used as well.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Setup_04-1024x683.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
My first batch of dyeing were the six Bare Twills. To begin I dissolved my mordants in water and threw my yarn in there to soak. I’m really looking for that spaghetti consistency to make sure it’s fully saturated.
Pre-soaking the yarn is a great way to apply mordants and also makes it easier for the fibers to absorb the dye. After letting the yarn soak for an hour or so, I squeezed out the excess water to prepare submersion into the dye.
I also want to quickly note, if you live with others you might consider cracking a window or turning on a fan. There was quite an aroma created from the dyes, and it definitely fills the air.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Dyeing_Process.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&resize=640%2C209&ssl=1)
First putting in the yarn and at the 30 minute check-in
I didn’t take photos of every color and yarn. But for this first batch I used two color concoctions:
- Cochineal, madder, and cutch to create a darker red.
- Logwood and iron to create a grayish blue.
With the red, I put in two full skeins of yarn as well as two skeins that were still twisted together. A quick side-note is that I put in the twisted skeins completely dry. My hope here is that the color would soak the outer layer and still leave some of the bare in the middle for a true kettle dye color effect.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Dyeing_Difference.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&resize=640%2C213&ssl=1)
Gloves for safety!
After letting the yarn soak in the dye for about an hour and a half, I let it cool down and rest for another half hour. The image above shows that my twist had worked, at least partially. I was left with some bare showing, which I intended to overdye with the logwood.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Overdyeing.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&resize=640%2C142&ssl=1)
Logwood is normally a purpley red, but by mixing in the iron oxide, it turns into a more blueish gray. With the logwood concoction ready, I put in one full hank, as well as the two half dyed yarns to overdye.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Cochineal-Overdye-1024x513.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
Closer look at the results of the overdyeing
While the overdyeing didn’t come out exactly as I had intended, I was still happy with the results. The cooler tones of the logwood mixed with the cochineal and created a beautiful purple. And since I had left some of the yarn bare, there was a nice mixture of the more gray tones of the logwood.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Drying.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&resize=640%2C213&ssl=1)
cochineal // cochineal overdyed with logwood // logwood-iron
Once the yarns soaked up as much of the dye as they could, I rinsed them out and hung them up to dry. I moved them around the house throughout the next few days for more air exposure.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Dyeing-Two-Toned-1024x340.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
With the leftover dye in the pots I had one last twill skein to use, so I let it soak in both pots to create a two toned outcome. It’s amazing how much dye is soaked up in the initial bath. The final result of this experiment was much less saturated but still created a beautiful coral and light gray. It can be seen in the group shot below (6th yarn in from the left).
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Untitled-1-1-1024x52.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
For my second batch, I brought out the Woodland Tweed. This yarn has a more gray undertone compared to the yellow undertones of Muse and Twill. I kept this in mind as I went forward with the next color experiment: mixing dyes. Using my art degree to its fullest, I knew that mixing blue and yellow would give me a green, and on top of the gray undertones of Woodland, I was hoping for a darker moss. The logwood and iron creates a blueish gray, though it stays on the warm side, and I had the osage and madder. I figured by mixing the two I could create some kind of greenish color.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/IMG_8381-1024x683.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
I started out by mixing in a smaller container so I didn’t waste a bunch of water/dye if it didn’t work out. Going back and forth, I would add a bit of osage or madder to bring more saturation and some cutch to try and make it darker/muted. This combination gave me a warm kind of olive color, and at some point I realized I wasn’t going to break the color threshold that I had created. Since the logwood and osage/madder are both warmer tones, it was pretty much impossible to create anything like a forest green. I ended up with more of a warm mossy green, and while it may not have been the most attractive color, I decided I wanted to try it out.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/IMG_8380.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&resize=640%2C215&ssl=1)
To help and balance it out, I created a two tone with the mossy green on one side and the logwood/iron on the other. It made it more neutral in tone, and added a bit more interest. The end result was alright; it’s not my favorite of my outcomes, but I am happy that I tried achieving a different color that was not originally part of the package.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Untitled-1-2-1024x52.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
On the third batch I used the Muse. At this point, I didn’t take any more photos since I didn’t feel like I needed to show the same process. So here’s a giant paragraph to read instead:
For the Muse I wanted to try a higher saturation of color. Up until now, I had been playing it fairly safe with my ratios and dye amounts, but I needed to see what could be accomplished. I did two different dye sets, a more “Regan” palette with red/brown and a royal set with purple/gold. My previous dye with red (featuring Twill) created a more orange-red, but dipping into the saturation of cochineal, I was able to create a more ruby for the Muse. On the flip side, I used a lighter amount of cutch to make a warm brown. I had actually used some logwood/iron to try and create a more gray brown, but the dye seemed to separate and clump together. In the end result, there are just some patches of almost black where the logwood/iron clung onto.
For the purple and gold, I stepped out of my usual color comfort. My whole journey I was adding iron to the logwood to create that gray color, but this time I used just the logwood and some alum to make the rich purple. And then I didn’t want just a yellow, I wanted a gold. Balancing out the osage and madder with a hint of cutch, I was able to finish off with a lovely marigold-esque vibrancy.
To finish this all off, I used the last of my Woodland Tweed (three skeins) and soaked up the leftover dyes from the cochineal, logwood, and osage. With that, all 18 skeins were dyed and drying.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/All-3-1024x414.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
Left to right:
Twill Logwood-Iron // Cochineal overdyed with Logwood // Cochineal conconction // Leftover dye from logwood and cochineal concoction Muse Cochineal and Cutch two toned // Osage and Logwood two toned Woodland Tweed Logwood leftover dye // Osage leftover dye // Cochineal leftover dye // Logwood-Iron and Logwood-Iron-Osage two toned
Looking at them all next to each other, I’m amazed by the amount of color variation I was able to achieve with only five natural pigments. At first, 18 skeins looks and sounds overwhelming, but there are so many possible colors; I didn’t have enough yarn to do everything I wanted!
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Muse_Red-2-1024x1024.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Muse_Royal-1-1024x1024.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Tweed_Moss-1-1024x1024.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
cochineal-cutch // osage-logwood // logwood-osage + logwood-iron
My final thoughts are that dyeing yarn is extremely fun, especially if you like playing with color. The real beauty of it is that I was able to cater my yarn and color choices to my specific preferences. Obviously for this adventure I was trying to get a wider range of color variation, but I think if I were to do it again, I’d stick to my usual autumn color palette.
![](https://eore4vit998.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Untitled-1-3-1024x52.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
coffee // onion // indigo
As a little extra bit, here are a few natural dyes I’ve done on my own. On the left is a skein I dyed using coffee. It was a pretty easy and straightforward dyeing process, and the result was pretty much expected. The middle came from the onion skins of about five or six sweet yellow onions. I expected to get a yellow color, but I was not ready for the intensity that I achieved (much more saturated in person). Finally, we had an office dye-day here at Knit Picks using indigo! The last photo is the skein I used for the fun, and is the result of a couple dunks into the indigo vat.
I definitely think natural dyeing is fascinating, and I look forward to seeing what colors I can get from things just in arms length. And hopefully you’ve had fun seeing my process. It’s a lot easier than one might think, so if you’ve been feeling hesitant about it, I say go for it. If I can do it, so can you!