Hey look, I dyed yarn with onion skins! This is such an easy dyeing experiment and one that a lot of beginners use. I probably should've started with this before indigo, but oh well!
I basically raided the new bag of onions plus all of the older skins that's been collecting at the bottom of our random veggie/fruit bowl for ages, weighed them out for giggles (25 g, btw), then dumped them in my new-to-me glass dye pot, topped it up in water, and simmered all the colour out of it...for hours. Oops.
I used some undyed
Mirasol Yarn Nuna that my LYS owner recced for dyeing. It's this super soft merino wool/silk/bamboo, and I can't wait to use it up, it's so lovely to touch. I scoured it with a few other skeins of yarn and did an alum mordent.
After the dye bath cooled, I added the yarn and warmed it up again to a simmer for a while (sorry, can't remember how long), then let it cool and sit overnight. By the time I pulled it out of the water, the yarn had absorbed most of the colour!
I rinsed the yarn for a while before giving it a vinegar rinse. After a final mild-soap bath, I pressed out the water and let it dye outside, with another dyed yarn I'll tell you about soon. :)
And this was the result! Orange isn't a colour I gravitate to, but I really love how it turned out. I even know what I'm going to make with it!
Holla Knits is doing another KAL (several of them actually, but here's
one that I'm joining), and I'm going to make up the
Francisco Cowl by Allyson Dykhuizen!
One more note about the onion dye. Look at how the 100% yarn I used to tie off the skein. SO ORANGE. I finally broke and bought a ton of undyed yarn from Knit Picks, and I'm really looking forward to experimenting with it.
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Guys, I have a ton of posts to write and much less time to write them
in now. I'm not complaining though, since it's because I started a new
job last week! It's a temp position that'll go until the end of the
year, but I like the work and, more importantly, it's a job. Actually,
two jobs, because I just found out that I got the distance ed teaching
position I applied for at my undergrad university! WOOHOO.
I'll try to get these posts out soon, because I have something exciting coming up for you all real soon!
Ooh! Congratulations on getting a job or two!?! And I love that colour. It always amazes me how natural dyes make colours so different from the thing the colour comes from!
ReplyDeleteHeh, thanks! Yeah, natural dyeing sure is interesting - sometimes the results make sense, other times...less so.
DeleteCongrats on the job and the lovely coloured wool.
ReplyDeleteAre you teaching at UofM?
I am indeed! And here I was trying to be subtle and not just announce where I was working. ;) lol I can do it from the Yukon though, so that's handy.
DeleteWell, even tho' I know YOU haven't said where it is -could be Minnesota, Michigan, Miami, Maine, Montenegro... :)
DeleteHaha fair enough! If it helps, I'll just say that it's a Canadian university. AND that pretty much spells it out because there's not many that start with an 'M'. Nevermind that I'm a prairie girl... LOL
DeleteThis is a pretty orange, very soft. Even the pure wool tie looks soft, though it's more saturated. This does sound like an easy way to dye. I think I'll let you try them all out for me, first. :). Is it possible to get a semi-solid look with natural dyes? I have seen where some people layer their yarn with different natural dye stuff in a jar for solar dyeing with a variegated look, and that sounds like fun. I'm so happy for you that you found a job so quickly and like it. Now, I'm interested in your upcoming surprises.
ReplyDelete" I think I'll let you try them all out for me, first. :)"
DeleteHeh, any requests? :D I have some choke cherry bark and leaves steeping to try out... :D
I'm not sure about semi-solids, honestly. A few of my experiments have yielded very subtle tonal variegation, but it wasn't because of any thing I did specifically. Perhaps if you don't soak the yarn ahead of time - then the yarn will pick up the colour at different levels...maybe. Or if you did a sort of dip dye, where you dip in part of the yarn for a while, leaving some of it hanging out, then slide in more - wait, add more, etc until the whole skein is in? It'd be something to experiment with, for sure!
HAHA definitely wasn't a quick find! I was unemployed for 7 months - but I suppose the second one came along pretty quickly. :)
Ridiculously late here, but so excited you got a job(s)!!!! And the dying is fascinating. I asked my mom to start saving some onion skins for me to experiment with some fabric (I'm looking for an option to get ivory rather than the beige I've always gotten from tea dying, which is the only dying I've done much of. ;) alas my husband can't tolerate onions so I never get to use them myself. :P
ReplyDeleteDid I mention YAY JOBS! :D
THANK YOU! I'm pretty stoked to be working again, even if it's a short term contract. :)
DeleteI don't think you'll get ivory with onion skins, but there's got to be something out there that can do it. Maybe even a different type of tea.