The Start of my love of dyeing

I started off dyeing yarn for myself using only one color.  I loved it right away!  The next few times I stuck with tonal dyeing, but soon I branched out to hand painting and I liked how much more variation and the control I had over how the yarn would look.  I learned a lot about how dye colors came out, how they worked (or didn’t work) together, and how the yarn base effected my outcome.

Pooling Problem

Next I started trying kettle dyeing.  I liked that the outcome was less predictable and more random and because I had learned so much hand painting I was able to apply that to kettle dye.  For a while I did these 2, kettle dyeing and hand painting.  But with hand painting I didn’t like how there would be pooling often and I had many customers ask about dyeing yarn that was less likely to pool.  Kettle dyed yarn does fit this but will still sometimes pool.

At about this same time I was wanting to try something new and tried tie dyeing.  I knew at once that this was going to become my favorite.  I love the variety of colors, tints, tones, and shades.

Dyeing with Yarn Restricted

When I tie dye the hank is restricted in different ways (wrapped as a hank, tied in knot(s), etc).  This means the repeats of colors are shorter than with most hand painting and kettle dyeing.  It also means that the yarn on the outside takes up a darker color than yarn under it, giving more variety and depth of shade of each color.

Layered Colors

Each color is dyed in separate layers.  So there is more color mixing.  This often gives a whole new color such as when blue and pink mix to produce purple.  And because each pink and blue will vary the purple also vary.

All of these produce colorways that almost never pool.  It’s also a lot of fun to see how each colorways comes out and how the colors mix and work together.  One of my favorite things is unwrapping a new colorway and seeing it at the end of all the layers.

I hope this has helped you understand tie dyeing and why I love it.  Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on any yummy squishy hand dyed goodness.