acid dyeing tutorial

7/28/2019 Acid Dyeing Tutorial

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Dye-a-Long Tutorial for ACID DYEby Zoe Armstrong

You will need:

Jacquard acid dyes in Pink, Turquoise, Emerald and Violet. The smallest one 1/2oz/

14g

Gloves, old marigolds will do, or latex, whatever you prefer

Dust Mask

Old teaspoon for measuring out dye

Knit Picks Bare Palette Fingering Yarn, 1 hank.

Old Newspapers

Cling film/saran wrap

Sieve

White vinegar

Glass/plastic jars, old tubs, plastic cups - Something to mix the dye in!

Foam Paint brushes

Cup measures (Kitchen safe for both acid and kool aid dyers as these wont come intocontact with any dye)

something for mixing the dye, spoons, lollipop sticks, wooden skewers etc

Salad spinner or old towel for getting rid of excess water

Pot for steaming yarn in. Old cloth/sponge for mopping up spills, excess dye

Please DONT use anything you plan on preparing food in after using for dyeing. Dyes canbe toxic! You may use the cup measure for food afterwards as you will only be measuringwater and vinegar with these.


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Preparation

Yarn Preparation

The 1st step for dyeing yarn is to soak your yarn.

Put it in a bowl with some room temperature water(not too hot and not too cold, you dont want toshock the fibre, or it will start to felt) and about atablespoon of vinegar. The vinegar sets the dyeonto the fibre, so I like to make sure its beensoaking in it, so it can penetrate all the waythrough. Soak your bare yarn for at least an hour.you can set this up the night before so its ready inthe morning!

Preparing the work area to dye

Lay out your old newspaper across your worksurface, then lay out your cling film on top ofthat. Make sure you overlap each piece of clingfilm by at about 3 inches. You will be placingyour yarn on top of the cling film for dyeing, andwrapping it up in it to be steamed once youvefinished. Lay out enough cling film so that youcan place your yarn in the middle of itcomfortably, with enough extra around the sideso you can wrap up the yarn easily. Now is thetime to get your pot of water for steaming set up.Get it ready and put it on so it will be boiling andready to go when you are. Fill the pot withenough water so it wont dry out for about 30minutes while the yarn is steaming.

Preparing the water/vinegar solution forthe dye and yourself

Get 4 old jars/plastic tubs etc and fill them upwith a quarter cup of warm water (doesntneed to be too hot, just warm enough to helpthe dye powder dissolve quickly) and aquarter cup of vinegar and take them to yourdyeing area. Now put your dust mask andgloves on.


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Preparing the dye

Get your old spoon and roughly measure out a half teaspoon of each dye and put them into intoeach separate tub. Stir them in carefully till all the dye powder has dissolved. Dry your spoon offeach time with your old cloth before dipping into a new dye.

Dont worry about getting an exact weight/quantity of dye. Your dyeing will still work whether you areover or under. Remember this is meant to be fun, so relax and enjoy it!

Dont worry if this doesnt look like much dye, it is just enough to cover all your yarn. Do not betempted to add more liquid!

Getting the yarn ready for dyeing

Remove your yarn from the water/vinegar bath and gently squeeze out the water. Now transfer it toyour salad spinner or roll it up in an old towel and stand on it to really get the excess water solution

out of it. You want it to be damp to the touch, not dripping wet! Make sure you sort the hank out so allthe loops of yarn are in the right place and lay it out on top of you cling film like it is in the picture. Ifyou think youll need more cling film, now is the time to do it!


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Beginning to dye - the fun part!

Start with the PINK dye (you might want to move the other dye out of the way so you dont knock itover!), dip your foam brush into the dye, you may have to squidge the brush up and down a fewtimes to get it to absorb the dye, especially if its a new brush. Then, starting at the middle top ofyour yarn, start to paint the yarn. This just means pressing the foam brush down onto the yarn.Dont be shy at this point, really work that dye into the yarn! I stab my brush onto the yarn with a lotof pressure. You want to make sure you are working the dye into the fibres, and all the way through

the yarn, so dont be gentle! Make your stripes about and inch think, again dont worry about beingexact. Work the pink dye into your yarn as shown in the pictures.

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For this side of yarn the yarn you should be using about half the dye volume, except the pinkof which you will use a little less.

Now get the TURQUOISE dye and a new foam brush and apply the dye, working it in, in the

same way as the pink dye, BUT, leave a gap of about 0.5cm between the pink and theturquoise and make the stripe about 2 inches thick.


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Now get your EMERALD dye and a new foam brush. This time you want to make another stripeof about 2 inches, BUT, you will overlap about 1 inch of the emerald on top of about 1 inch of theturquoise. This means you are mixing the colours right on the yarn!

Now get your VIOLET dye and a new foam brush and fill in the remaining white areas,BUT, remember to leave another gap of about 0.5 cm between the Violet and the pink.You can butt the violet right up next to the green, but dont overlap it.

You can see here that I dont have any dye running off the yarn. If this does happen youcan use your foam brush to soak it back up and if your getting too messy, use your oldcloth to mop up. You shouldnt really have a mess of dye running off the yarn, and if youare getting this then you are not working the dye into the the yarn properly, but again, dontworry, this is a fun, first time dyeing, just clean up and move on!

We are leaving a space on each side of the pink to let it set into the yarn, before the other

colours flood it. This will make sure you get a nice lilac colour with small hints of pink shinningthrough. You should have used about half of the dye solution for each colour now, except thepink, which you will have a little more of.


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Now flip your yarn over! You might get some dye running off while doing this, but dont worry,just clean it up! Your yarn will look something like this!

You can see how much you should have worked the dye through the yarn! Now paint in thisside of the yarn as you just did, starting with the pink and remembering to overlap the Emeraldwith the Turquoise. This time though, you can butt the turquoise and the violet right up next tothe pink. Depending on how you flipped your yarn over, the colours might be orientated adifferent way from my picture. Dont worry, just follow the stripes, putting the same colour of dyeon top of the colour that is soaking through. Remember not to mix your foam brushes - keepthe colours separate.

When you are done you should have used up pretty much all of your dye, you might still have alittle pink left over. This is fine! Now flip you yarn back over and use up any excess dye filling inany white spots that are left. If you have excess pink dye, then go ahed and work the rest of itinto the pink stripes. If you have no extra dye left, dont worry, this is good! Just use your foambrushes and press them down on any white spot and youll find that there is enough dye in theyarn already and it will soak in, getting rid of the bare yarn! Remember to use the right foambrush for the colour of stripe you are working on!

Now you are ready to wrap up your yarn for steaming!


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Flip the top and bottom of the cling film over your yarn, then flip the top and bottom ofthe yarn inwards.

Use the same method for the sides.

Then fold in half lengthwise again.

And fold in half again so you have a little yarn bundle!

There is no official way to wrap your yarn, this is just how I like to do it! You can wrap adifferent way if you like, just make sure the bundle of yarn is going to stay as sealed up aspossible.


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Now put the yarn into your old sieve, or whatever you are using to steam it in and put it on topof your pot of boiling water and cover with a lid. Dont worry if you dont have lid, just coverwith tin foil or cling film and poke a few holes in it!

Let it steam of 30 minutes then take the sieve out of the pot. Be carful of steam escaping, makesure your face is out of the way and your hands covered! Now let that little yarn bundle cool rightdown, I know its tempting, but be patient. Once you can touch it safely with bare hands thenCAREFULLY start to open it. You can open it over your newspaper to catch spills or over a sink.The yarn may still be VERY HOT on the inside so exercise caution and dont be silly, burns are notnice! Now that your yarn is out, if its still warm let it cool down. Hanging it outside is probably bestas it will be dripping wet!

Once its cooled right down you can now rinse it. Fill up a sink with room temperature water and

place the yarn in it (your dye is set now, so it is safe to put in the sink). You will see the excess dyein the water. You can VERY GENTLY swirl the yarn around in the water, but remember, your yarnhas just been through a lot and you dont want it to felt so this is not necessary! Refresh the wateruntil you can put the yarn in and it stays clear. Dont squeeze the water out of your yarn betweenrinses, just lift it out and run a new sink full, then place the yarn back in!

When your yarn is all rinsed out, take it out of the sink and GENTLY squeeze out excess water.Put it back in your salad spinner to spin out excess water, or wrap it up in an old towel and

stand on it to get the majority of water out. Hang it up somewhere to dry and you are done!

Now give yourself a pat on the back and go clean up! Its best to clean foam brushes and tubsoutside if you have the facilities, if not, just give your sink a REALLY GOOD CLEANafterwards! You can always fill up a bucket with water and rinse them out that way, so you arenot getting unset dye in your kitchen sink!


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One extra step you can do but is not necessary, is to give your yarn a final soak in some Eucalan/Soak or something of that nature, just to get some moisture back into the yarn. You can also waitand knit up a project like the Dyed in The Wool scarf and use the Eucalan/Soak when you aresoaking your item ready for blocking.

I hope you enjoyed this dye-a-long and feel confident enough to try dyeing again!

Bye!

2013 Zoe Armstrong

acid dyeing tutorial

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