Solar dyeing and summer heat

A few days ago, I pulled my last skein of handspun mohair off of my two yard Niddy Noddy and proceeded to dye all the handspun yarn.

Wiltons food dye_1 8.20.16

 

If you’ve made ‘Sun Tea’ the process is similar, of course instead of tea (unless you’re using that to color the yarn) you use a dye.

Wilton's Dye gel
I normally use natural dyes for my handspun yarn, but this time I used Wilton’s icing colors. It’s a food coloring, mainly used to tint icing. I used vinegar to set the color.

Handspun Mohair_1 8.20.16
I will say that my handspun mohair yarn took the dye well and left the variegated pattern that I wanted. Listening to my daughter’s suggestion I went with an orange/copper base and I added a goldenrod yellow also. I have yellow undertones in my skin and I thought this would compliment it nicely.

Wiltons food dye_3 8.20.16

 

A few evenings ago, I went outside and removed the handspun yarn from the glass jar. The water was warm, I rinsed off the water, removed the excess water into a towel and hung the yarn outside on a rack to dry.

Wiltons food dye_2 8.20.16

 

The shimmer and the halo that mohair possess was still in the yarn. That’s good, it’s the main reason I chose mohair to complete the project for the knitting designer.

Wiltons food dye_4 8.20.16

Now, the only thing left is to allow this to completely dry and then begin knitting. Unless of course… I want to overdye the yarn. We’ll see!

6 thoughts to “Solar dyeing and summer heat”

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