Trial and error: Yarn Dyeing

Ok so I've been itching to dye my own yarn. I went out and bought four skeins of acrylic only to discover it's pretty difficult to hand dye. 

So, I dug out a cone of cotton that I've had for ages. 

I washed it.

I rinsed it.

Then I proceeded to dye it. Now, I'm using food coloring and the nice lady in the YouTube tutorial said use vinegar. You can imagine what my house smells like. However, ain't nere a soul eatin' greens up in here today. 

Apparently, you are only supposed to let it come to a boil. I did not. This my friends is what I ended up with...

It is a very pretty shade of green though right??

You'd think after it sat in dye over night the end result would be a lusicous shade of green...wrong.

The good thing is this was fun. I'm going to try again this weekend. It turns out cotton yarn only accepts fiber reactive dye. Like the stuff you use to tye dye tshirts. Animal fibers, like wool, alpaca and mohair, are the only yarns that accept food coloring and kool aide.

 As far as acrylic goes...well I probably won't be dying acrilyc. 😊