Making Self Striping Yarn
I have been quite creative today, but that creativity will remain secret since some projects will be holiday gifts, and I don’t want to spoil any surprises.
In the mean time, I’ll show some creativity of another year when I learned how to make self striping yarn. That’s the yarn that became popular about 5 years ago that makes stripes and patterns without the knitter changing colours, or paying attention to a chart.
It was something I had always wondered about….how could they design sock wool so that it would make such regular stripes, and patterns. I did a little internet research, and found out how it is done!
WARNING: This project takes ALL day, your ENTIRE apartment, and gets quite messy. It is a lot of fun though.
To start with, you need yarn with a significant wool content (it accepts kool-aid/natural dyes better). If you are dyeing with chemical dyes, check to see what fibers they will work best with. I chose to use all my freezer burned frozen fruit, and other things I could find in my kitchen. Some substances work better than others. Think of what leaves a nasty stain on clothes, and it will probably be a good dye.
Step 1: Gather materials
Strawberries, Blueberries, Raspberries, Cranberries, Blackberries, Red Cabbage, Onion, Red Onion, Curry, Green Tea, Black Tea, and 100% wool from Brigs and Little (1 ply)
Step 2: Make a LARGE skein of yarn. This will be larger than any other skein imaginable. I used my entire apartment!
It took a long time to wrap yarn around all of the chairs I own, and then to tie extra strings around the skein in many places to keep it from getting tangled.
Step 3: Unhook the large skein (tied in many places so it’s not tangled), and soak it in water with vinegar and alum and cream of tartar (which makes the wool accept the dye better–I’m still not exactly sure why). Gather several mason jars, and make a water bath in a pot on the stove. The salt is to set the colour in the end.
Step 4: Take a 1-2 meter section of the very large skein, and put it in a mason jar with water and the dye. Turn the stove on. Make sure to keep an eye on the water level in the pot. don’t let it boil dry. Each 1-2 meter section will represent a stripe of color in the finished garment (socks in this case).
Step 5: It gets a bit messy dealing with the wool that is being dyed, and the wool that has been dyed, since it is all in one very large skein. Make sure the wool doesn’t burn on the stove element. Make sure that there is always water in the pot. Make sure you have some bleach to clean your stove and counter when you are done!
Keep going until all portions of the wool are dyed.
Step 6: Rinse the skein in cool salt water (to set the colour)
Step 7: Hang the yarn to dry.
This wool was knit up into socks, but I didn’t get a good picture before they ended up in the wash. It is interesting to me how they change colour when washed with laundry detergent. I think it has something to do with the pH, and the universal indicator properties of some of these fruit pigments. The colours are now more on the brown/yellow side.
I did a similar project with kool-aid, and some handspun white yarn as well.
Hanging to dry in the bathroom.
wound into a skein
If you plan it properly and start knitting the sock at the same point in the colour sequence, you’ll get a matched pair (which is important to some people!)
after two years of wear, the colours have faded a little.
I wish you luck if you try this! Let me know how it turns out.
Tags: art every day, dyeing, knitting, kool-aid dye, natural dyes, self striping yarn, spinning, tutorial
