This project was inspired by the gift of some food coloring
and a skein of white yarn. Thank you
Mary Rose! When my daughter was young we
dyed in the kitchen using Kool-Aid all the time. It was easy and safe and we didn’t need
special pots. We never tried food coloring before, but were eager to, as my
friend Sheila does the most amazing gradients and transitional colorways using
them! If you want to see some check it
out: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/lacesheknits/annapurna
So when my daughter was home over the holidays we had a
dye party in the kitchen. Easy, safe and
so much fun! Food coloring works like
acid dyes, so this recipe will work for any protein fiber. That means a fiber that comes from an animal;
wool, cashmere, alpaca, silk, angora, mohair.
Plant fibers (cotton, linen) will not work well with this type of dye.
This is all the Dye you Need!
Materials
1 skein KnitPicks
Stroll, fingering weight; 75% superwash Merino, 25% nylon; 462 yards/100 grams.
1 set of 4
food coloring (4 x 0.3 ounce bottles) in Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow.
9 ball jars,
at least 600ml each.
One canning
pot or other large pot to hold all jars, with pot cover on.
Disposable
chop sticks or stirrers you do not mind getting color on.
Niddy noddy
and waste yarn
Waste yarn to
tie skeins.
Towel.
US 4 (3.5mm)
needles: 10” straights are good (if you are making the simple scarf.)
This shows the yarn skeins and ready
Almost Finished in the Dye Bath
Skeins Hanging to Dry
Create
Once the
skein(s) is/are really dry, you can wind it/them into a ball(s) for easy
knitting. Try this easy scarf, which
will give you a garter mesh with a bias, with long color blocks of each color
in sequence.
Easy scarf
not your thing? Pick any project you
love that wants to be a rainbow! Or try
the Lichen Moebius, available through my Ravelry Shop: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lichen-moebius-scarf
This is Lichen, Full Rainbow Treatment!!
