I’ve always enjoyed experimenting with color combinations when dyeing yarn, trying to create something unique rather than sticking to a single color without blending. However, mixing two or more dyes often didn’t give me results I was happy with. So, this week, I decided to make my own mini-skein swatch set using red, blue, and yellow dyes. I chose these colors over the magenta, cyan, and yellow dyes (which are better for accurate color mixing) to achieve a more traditional rainbow rather than a bright or neon one.
I was inspired by the ChemKnits YouTube tutorials and created my own pyramid of yarn containers to create a consistent blend of dyes. Below is a list of materials I used, along with the step-by-step process to do this experiment.
Materials:
- 15 Knit Picks Bare Swish DK mini-skeins (10 g each)
- Jacquard acid dyes: Sky Blue, Gold Ochre, and Scarlet
- 16-oz deli containers with lids
- Citric acid (or vinegar)
The process:
- I started by pre-soaking the yarn in cold tap water for about an hour.
- Then, I mixed the dyes to create a 1% stock solution. I intended to prepare 50 mL of each color, but I mistakenly mixed 150 mL due to an error in my calculations when creating my spreadsheet. Fortunately, the extra dye allows me to use the results to create full skeins of yarn in some of the new colors I develop!
- Next, I filled each container with 1 cup of cold water.
- Then, I added the dye to each container according to the chart image below.
- I placed one skein of yarn into each container and mixed to blend.
- After waiting an hour or two, I added citric acid to allow the dye to “strike” to the yarn. To do this, I dissolved 4 teaspoons of citric acid in a small cup of warm water and distributed it equally among the 15 containers.
- Next, I put the lids on each container and let the yarn soak for over 24 hours.
- Then, I heated the yarn to set it. Since I don’t have a steam pot specifically for dyeing yarn, I used my crock pot. I placed 4 containers in the pot, added about 4 cups of water to the base, covered it, and set it to high. Once all the water was heated, I let it sit for 30–60 minutes, then repeated the process with the remaining containers. I chose to heat the skeins in their respective containers to prevent the colors from bleeding.
- Finally, I washed and dried the yarn to see my results.
The Results
The color mixing produced beautiful oranges and greens, along with some nice shades of brown. However, the Scarlet (red) dye proved to be very powerful and dominated some of the yellow/red mixes. Despite this, I’m pleased with the results and plan to create a few full skeins based on some of the colors from this set.
Next Steps
I’m planning on picking three different Jacquard acid dye colors to repeat this experiment, which I hope will create some unique and unexpected colors!
Nicolesy Knits 