This month's Lion Brand newsletter includes some tutorials on dying your wool using food. They include beets, grapes and yellow onions, but the one which I think is most dramatic is the use of the bright yellow spice - turmeric. It's a pretty simple and effective way to get a dramatic colour, and as it uses natural products the dying process won't harm the environment.
You will need: One oz ground turmeric and three quarts water. This will produce enough dye for two skeins of wool, or two balls of cotton.
Instructions after the snip...
Bring mixture to a boil in a stainless steel or enamel pot and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. It will reduce in volume some what while boiling. As soon as it is finished cooking, you can use it.
1. Bundle the yarn for dying into a hank. It needs to be looped in such a way that the dye will be able to circulate freely but also needs to be secured so it does not tangle. If you do not do this, you'll spend a lot of time untangling it when it is wet. Bundling turned out to be particularly important for wool yarn, which will felt together if allowed to move during dying. Here is how we made the bundles:
A. Wind the yarn into large loop. You can do this on a swift or by wrapping it around the back of a chair or by wrapping it around your forearm from your fingers, under your elbow and back up again.
B. Secure the wound yarn by tying it loosely in two places with short pieces of yarn.
C. If your pan is small, double the loop, twisting it into a smaller circle and securing it with two more short pieces of yarn.
2. Bring the bath to a boil.
3. Dampen the yarn by dipping it in water and wringing it out well. This will help the dye spread smoothly through the yarn.
4. Place the yarn in the dye bath.
5. Cook for 30 minutes. If the dye bath evaporates to a point where the yarn is not covered with dye, add more water.
6. If you want to test your color, remove the yarn from the bath and rinse it. If you like the color, great, if not, put it back for more processing time.
7. When the yarn is finished simmering, remove it from the bath and rinse it in cool water until the water runs clear. Do NOT throw out the dye bath until the yarn has dried completely and you know you are happy with the color. Note: When rinsing the yarn, use soap as well as water. It is better to find out that your yarn is not color-fast now than later when you've made it into something.
8. Wring out the yarn.
9. Cut the second set of ties on the yarn, but leave the first ones in so that the yarn is in a big loop.
10. If you are dying wool yarn, put it back on the swift or chair or whatever you used when winding it originally, rewind it into a ball and then rewind it back into its loop. This is because some of the strands may have felted together slightly. The winding process will unfelt anything that felted and we found it much easier to unfelt the yarn when it was damp.
11. In all cases, hang the yarn up to dry.
