Follow along and discover your next inspiration as we cast on for projects we love, explore new techniques, and dish about the latest and greatest from Knit Picks.
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I’ve never dyed yarn before. I love to experiment, but I
don’t really like following instructions. This makes for an interesting combo
when it comes to hand dyeing. I cook a lot and like to mix different recipes
for the same dish into a funny hybrid that by nature I can never
remember how I
made. Must be a good method for dyeing yarn, right? Definitely! Well,
perhaps .
. .
Well, my acid-dyed experiments are dry and vinegar-smell-free (much
to the relief of my hubby)! I wanted to wait till they were good and dry
before sharing the results, because after the steam bath, some of them
looked a little questionable! But, I am pleased to say that they’re
lookin’ pretty good now!
The first one I tried to dye to match my favorite mug.
I was actually going for more of a gradated-sunset-kind-of-look with my second sock blank,
but since my cherry blank completely exhausted all the dye in the red
Kool-Aid (to my surprise!), I only had lemonade and orange left. I
decided to wing it and try mixing 1 pack of orange with some red food
dye and a splash of vinegar and see what I’d get.
First I dumped the whole blank in the pot of boiling lemonade until it exhausted the dye.
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I’ve
always been curious about dyeing yarn, but I was intimidated by the safety
precautions you need to take with dyes that aren’t food safe (although now that
Kelley and Kerin have given us some pointers, I am feeling more confident). Then
Nina pointed me towards the What a Kool Way to Dye group on Ravelry, and I
couldn’t wait to give Kool Aid dyeing a try. My local grocery store didn’t have
a huge variety of flavors, so I picked up two of everything they had.
When you were a kid, you know how your imagination was able to turn
your hand into a T-rex? Or a fierce lion? Or… anything? Or how your
dad’s old sock could transform magically into a sea monster, just by
putting it on your hand?
Well, I sure do! Bring that magic to the young’uns in your life with the Critter Mitts kit!
So many people around the office have jumped into dyeing this month as members of our Dye-Along,
which makes me so glad! Dyeing is one of the most relaxing, creative,
and fun hobbies I have, and I love that we’re all sharing the cool
tricks and ideas we’re discovering. Knit Picks offers a variety of
natural-colored yarn bases that are perfect for dyeing; the creamy
colored wool takes all kinds of dyes wonderfully and gives you, the
dyer, amazing control over the range and depth of colors in your
finished yarn.
I love dyeing natural colored yarns, too. But sometimes, I just have to shake things up.
I’ve recently been exploring natural dyeing methods, and I was really excited when we started carrying a Indigo Dye kit. What makes indigo dyeing a little tricky is that indigo is not naturally water soluble, and you need water to help the fabric absorb the dye. So the indigo in this kit is reduced into powder, and when you add it to a bucket of water, it is a yellow green color because the oxygen was removed. You add wet yarn or fabric to the indigo and hold it in the dye bath for only a couple of minutes. When you remove the dyed yarn, it is a bright green color and you can watch it turn blue as it comes into contact with oxygen. I have a more in depth tutorial for dyeing with this Indigo Dye kit here.
Read more »When Kerin and I were faced with the challenge of designing fun,
playful kits for a kid-and cotton-themed catalogue, we decided to
imagine ourselves as kids again and figure out what kinds of things we
would have wanted knit for us. It wasn’t much of a challenge, really.
Sweaters??? Bo-ring! Scarves? Suh-NORE!!! The kids in us wanted
something that would be really, truly FUN to play with, especially in
the warming days of springtime:
When we released the Backyard Garden kit, I created lots of tutorials for fun projects to embellish with your knitted flowers, leaves, and bugs. But we wanted to hear your ideas too! We had a contest to see what other knitters plan to embellish with their Backyard Garden kit, and I picked 5 winners who had fun and creative ideas! Each winner will receive a $25 Knit Picks Gift Certificate, and I will send a message in this community to let them know that they have won!
And now for the winners!
Cheryl is going to knit a flower for each person who attends her World Wide Knit in Public event!
Kyle is going to turn the embellishments into ornaments for his Christmas in July party.
Susan suggested using the flowers as luggage tags, so she could easily spot her suitcase at the airport.
Evelyn would use the flowers …
I have never dyed yarn before, and honestly I was intimidated. What I
have dyed a lot though is frosting and white chocolate. I love the
“gel” food coloring that you can buy at Michael’s or any store that has
a “cake decorating” section. This isn’t the liquid food coloring drops,
this is food coloring in a gel form so the color is super
concentrated–you don’t need much to get a really vibrant color. Try it
in melted white chocolate, then spoon your white chocolate into a zip
loc bag, cut off the corner and drizzle over thick pretzels that you’ve
dunked in melted caramel–so yummy and they make a great personalized
gift for sports team lovers, or…oh wait, what was I talking about?
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