dyeing

Many successful effects can be achieved by dyeing your own fiber, yarn, or fabric. If you have made and documented a catalog of synthetic dye recipes, you can reproduce just the color you want. On the other hand, sometimes it's fun to just experiment and see what happens by accident.

Fiber can be dyed before it is spun and then blended together to be spun into a heathered yarn. Two or more plies of different colors can be combined. Or the unspun fiber can be "painted" in sections yielding a variegated yarn. Yarn can be "vat-dyed" for solid colors, or painted in the skein which is another way to obtain variegated yarn. One fabulous effect is to measure the warp yarn for weaving, and then paint the warp before weaving.

Here is some unspun wool fiber being heated on the stove. Protein fibers can be dyed with synthetic dyes called "acid dyes". For an illustrated description of a dyeing process, read the first part of my vest story.

Dye sources:

Pro Chemical and Dye

Dharma