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Dying Your Own Yarn

Our ancestors dyed wool fabrics and others material such as mantas (a light weight cotton fabric made by the Anasazi) and bone (used as decorative beads). The process for color dying is complicated and the best way to learn about dying materials is to try it out yourself. The following is a process for dying materials using items that are available in and around the house.

General Dyeing Instructions

Materials

100% wool yarn or cloth that has not yet been dyed, (white or natural gray)

The natural dyes listed below will not require mordants, although direct dyes fade faster if exposed to light for long periods or washed over and over. Use an equal amount of dye and yarn - if you want to dye two ounces of yarn, add two ounces of plant material. The darkness of color will vary from season to season and plant to plant, so this is not an exact science. Simply add more dye material if you find that your yarn isn't the color you wanted. Below is a chart of natural dyeing materials that are easy to use and to obtain.

Natural Dye Color Chart

Pink/Rose/Lavender - Berries	Blackberries/blueberries are impermanent dyes. More useful for coloring food than yarn. Try adding a little alum as a mordant. Cook the berries with yarn - if color is too blue, add white vinegar, a tsp. at a time, to make color more red.
Golden Yellow - Tumeric Powder	You can find this spice in a grocery store. One tsp. per oz. of yarn, dissolve in water and boil with yarn.
Lemony Yellow - Apple and Pear Tree Bark	Scrape bark from trees or newly fallen branches,(inner bark needs to be moist)and boil with yarn. Need 2-3 times as much bark as yarn. Try other barks - cherry gives a pink/tan color.
Yellow - Onion Skins	Use 3-4 handfuls of dry outer skin per oz. of yarn. Collect from grocery store bins and boil with yarn.
Gray/Green - Red Onion Skins	Treat these the same as other onion skins.
Brown - Black Walnut Hulls	Use outer hull of nut, not just shells. Gather from ground and soak overnight in water.boil in same water, adding water as needed to cover hulls.

a 1-4 quart enamel or stainless steel pot, (once you use this for dyeing, don't use it for cooking again!)

5 tablespoons distilled white vinegar

measuring spoons

liquid dishwashing detergent

a candy thermometer, (nice to have, but not necessary)

a long handled wooden spoon to remove the yarn from the dyebath.

1. Wash the yarn in a clean sink or washbasin with hot tap water. Mix some detergent with the running water, then put the yarn into the bath. Make sure the yarn is completely wet and let it stand for 30 minutes. Squeeze yarn for a few minutes, then take it out of the bath. Rinse well in clean warm water. Keep the yarn wet!

2. This is not a necessary step. But if you want to get better results in terms of the fastness (resistance to fading) of the dye, mordanting the yarn is an important step. You may want to try using alum as a mordant, (careful - it might irritate your eyes if you get it near them). Be careful not to put your face over the mordant pot when it is simmering - the vapors are noxious. Put about 8.4 grams of alum mordant for every 2 ounces of yarn. Put the mordant in your dye pot with one cup of water. Heat and stir gently until dissolved. Do not allow bath to boil! Add 2 quarts water and stir well to mix. Place your saturated yarn into bath and bring to a slow simmer, (180-200^oF) stirring as needed. It should take 20-30 minutes to come to a simmer. Turn heat down as water begins to boil, allow yarn to simmer for one hour. Stir occasionally.

3. Next, turn off the heat under the dye pot. Allow the yarn to cool in the bath. Once it is cooled, squeeze the excess water from the yarn and rinse well in warm water to remove the alum that didn't bond with the wool. Keep the wool yarn wet by putting it in a pan of clean water. If this is as far as you plan to get in one day, hang your wool skeins up to dry.

4. When dyeing, always make sure that the yarn is completely saturated with water.

5. Put enough water in your dyeing pot to entirely submerge the yarn.

6. Raise the water temperature slowly. For 3-4 quarts of water to come to a simmer, it should take approximately 30 minutes.

7. The longer you leave the yarn in the dye bath, the deeper the color will be, just like dyeing eggs. Different dye materials, however, will dye the yarn at different rates. For paler colors, check the yarn 15 minutes after the dye bath has come to a simmer. Wet yarn will appear to be darker than it actually is! Most dyes require a half hour of simmering for a nice color.

8. If you leave the yarn to cool in the dye bath overnight, you might get an even deeper color.

9. Because the acidity/alkalinity of water has an effect on the resulting dye colors, the color chart may be a little off in some cases. Just a little iron in your water can cause your colors to become duller. If you want perfect results, use distilled water for your dye bath.

10. If you decide to take your yarn out of the dye bath before the water has cooled significantly, let the yarn cool before you rinse it. Do not put room temperature yarn into a hot bath, or hot yarn under tap water. Rinse the yarn carefully and thoroughly several times. The goal here is to rinse away the excess dye without shocking the wool by a rapid temperature change. Wash the yarn with liquid detergent and rinse it again.

11. Hang the yarn out to dry, (not in direct sunlight!) and then you are done! You can use your yarn to knit, crochet, or any number of other crafts. If you want to get the same color again, snip a small piece of yarn from your skein and label it with your exact recipe and the date of the dyeing.

Click here for references.

Dying Your Own Yarn

Pink/Rose/Lavender - Berries