I was better at recording video then I was at taking pictures of the process, but it was truly very simple. Keep in mind that I’m a professional dyer and have been dying yarn for close to 20 years and have a studio space and all the equipment ready and waiting for these types of projects… obviously my experience plus the space made things easier for me, but I honestly think that the same process could be done using Koolaid to achieve similar results. Fun fact – I dyed my very first skeins of yarn with Koolaid. It was truly the gateway for me! We use professional acid dyes – when dyeing wool make sure that you’re using a dye that specifies that it works for protein fibers. Acid dyes require heat and acid to set, acid can be citric acid or white vinegar.
I wanted to dye only the yoke, leaving the bottom cream, giving it almost a dip dyed affect – note to self, do this again as an actual dip dye… using only one colour fading into cream. It would be fabulous!
I soaked just the yoke of the sweater – literally just took a big bowl, filled it with room temp water and placed the sweater in it leaving the bottom of the sweater and sleeves draped over the sides. When the sweater yoke was sufficiently soaked I layed it out on my work surface and applied the dyes, blue, pink and yellow, in sections and used my gloved hand to smoosh the dye around a bit to control how much the colours overlapped. The magic happens in the overlap! It looked pretty garish upon application but I knew that it would settle down, blend more and become more subtle when I submerged it in water to set the dye.
So, that was the next step. Submerge the yoke in hot water with vinegar or citric acid in it to immediately set the colour. Once that was complete we decided to soften the look even more by spraying some dye on the sweater using spray bottles. It creates a soft speckled look and added a bit of grunge to the overall very cheerful sweater. After the spray we had to set the dye again using the same submerging into hot acidic water method. Then I just laid it flat to dry and waited (impatiently) to wear my new favourite sweater!
