Dye your own yarn!

A while ago I bought the Dutch book ‘Handmade’ from Jessica Kouwenhoven. If you’d like to a add a gorgeous book to you collection, buy it! It has a beautiful and contains content about how to make your own crochet hook, buttons, needles AND how to dye your own yarn. All of this with natural material that can be found during a walk in woods or park. After you’ve finished your project you can start knitting or crocheting a pattern from the book.

I was inspired by this book. Dye my own yarn, that what I wanted to do! But i seemed complicated… but this is definately not true! It is very easy to do!

Dye your own yarn

You start with collecting materials to dye with. The book describes several examples. In reality you can use anything you want. In this case the definitive color will be a surprise.

I wanted to start collecting and for some reason I wanted to eat a lot of avocados and take many walks in the woods and park. I collected the following materials:

• Avocado peels and seeds – for a pink color
• Acorns – for a cream color
• Pine cones – for a soft pink color
• Alder cones – for ocher/mustard yellow color

What else do you need?

• Book ‘Handmade’ van Jessica Kouwenhoven
• Alum
• Pans and pots
• Wooden spoons
• Thermometer
• Vinegar
• Yarn, I used ‘Drops Lima, color 1101‘, but Jessica writes about several more yarns to dye with :-).

The process

I’ll explain the process globally, you can read all of this in the book. In conclusion you’ll do this:

• Rinse your yarn and leave in the water to soak for a while, until the yarn is completely wet.
• Boil your natural materials and leave for a night (for the best dying color).
• Heat the yarn and after a while add the alum, boil for a while and rinse very good!
• Remove the natural materials from the pot and reheat the dye. When it reaches the right temperature you slowly let the wool slide into the pot.

You’ll be dying for around around four hours, divided over three days. For a perfect result you’ll let the wool rest two nights.

Note! Never let your yarn boil! This might harden your wool and you won’t be able to use it anymore.

Note! Boiling your material will not add a nice smell to your home. It would be wise to use your extractor hood in the kitchen. Even though it stinks, the result will be awesome!

Result

I am so in love with these colors! They really are a perfect match.. all nice and natural shades. I especially love the alder cones color. The result of ‘dyeing my own yarn’ is very much is a great success for me!

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