Fiber Fun Friday -- Hot Pour Dyeing

Up 'til now I have only dyed unprocessed fiber and only 1 color at a time. Yesterday I decided to try something different.

If you've been following along, I have a major project in the works for the fiber arts competition at the National Alpaca conference. The due date for registration is May 5th. So far so good.

I have spun all the yarn I will need. It's an amazing blend of suri, huacaya and bamboo. I used a few different white pacas so the whole project feels like a group effort. :o)

Well, once that yarn was spun it needed something....specifically, color.

I thought long and hard about what I wanted and I knew that whatever I decided I wanted a multi-colored yarn. There are a few different methods to achieve this, but I had to pick one.

I choose the hot pour method of dyeing. Basically it boils down to exactly what it sounds like. You pour the dye on when the pot is hot.

It's a little more complex than that as you have to watch your ph and temperatures, but it's kind of like a free for all. Pour the colors you want next to each other and *pow*....multi-colored yarn.

It's by far the least messy and easiest form of multi-colored dyeing. At least I think so.

Eventually I want to try hand painting yarn. Maybe next week? Haha.

The yarn is now hanging in the basement to dry. I'm glad Jim didn't mind all the drippy water because it was waaayyy too cold to hang it outside.

It's hard to see the color variations in this picture, but there are pinks, purples and kind of a salmon color in there. I think it'll knit up really nice.


It's not exactly what I was going for, but I learned a lot and next time it should be easier and even better looking.