More dyeing adventures- oven dyeing

I have been doing lots of dyeing lately, because of this I decided to try out a new technique- oven dyeing. The presoaked yarn is put in a baking tray (a deep one) with enough water and vinegar to just cover it, then dyes are poured on and smooshed about. The tray is covered with foil and put in the oven for about 40 minutes. It is left to cool then washed and dried as usual.

s

s

There were a couple of reasons for trying this-

• It is less messy than wrapping in cling film and steaming, I always get leaks!
• The pans and foil are reusable, whereas the cling film gets binned
• I can get two pans in the oven at a time, dyeing 200g but only 100g in the steamer pot.

There were a few problems with the method. The superwash yarn and fibres I used slurp up the dye pretty quickly, leaving you with white bits, especially on the bottom. And no one wants a white bottom!

I found that plenty of smooshing with a spoon helped, also turning the fibre/yarn over and adding half the dye to the bottom was effective if a little messy (plenty of old newspaper all round to catch the drips). If all else fails call it intentional!

The other problem I had was with the pans I bought. I initially got some solid metal trays in preference to foil ones as I was worried about the foil bending when it was full (which it does). This was ok, but I don't think they appreciated sitting overnight full of vinegery water as the fibre cooled. Rust patches started to develop, and I have been told rust can affect how the colours come out.

As a solution I am currently using foil trays sat in the now slightly rusty pans. This works quite well as there is less water to heat as the foil pans are smaller (saves energy) and the solid metal pans stop the foil bending and dye going all over the carpet. Also if the dye tray does bubble over a little it goes into the second pan rather than all over the oven.

This picture shows close up of the yarn in the dye, it looks so pretty, I think it is even better when it is wet than when it is dry, all shiny. Maybe I need to experiment with different base yarns! The grabbiness of the superwash can be seen here in the fact the blue and purple are sat next to each other with almost no bleeding.

s

Book review- Hand dyeing yarn and fleece

This week it is all about the book Hand dyeing yarn and fleece by Gail Callahan. Amazon linky here.

s

I have not had this book long, a little over a month, and would usually wait a bit longer before doing a review so I have time to use the book quite a bit and get a feel for how useful it really is. No need with this one, I love it already!

s

There is loads of info in here, and it all seems to be the useful kind of stuff that sometimes you can't find in other places. In particular for me it was the dip dyeing info that swung it, the other books I had bought did not give any details on it and I wanted to know!

s

The book starts with the pretty much standrad details of setting up for dyeing, health and safety, dye types and colour. No big suprises here but nicely written with plenty of pictures to keep it interesting.

s

For me the best bit of this book is the method instructions. Every step is clearly illustrated with lovely pictures and good written instructions. Although some of the methods use microwaving rather than stovetop steaming which is my preferred method it is simple to transfer the techniques across.

s

Finally there are some patterns given to show off the hand dyed yarns, including the dyeing instructions (a range of methods are used across the patterns). I have not used any of these but they seem well written and clear. I would not buy the book just for the patterns as there are only eight (fine for a dyeing book, less so for a pattern book) and while nice they are not really my personal FO style.

s

Price wise I paid about £8, I would definately say that is good for what I have got from the book. I can also see myself coming back to it often to try out different methods so will have got my moenys worth out of it.

s

A final good point is that the book is spiral bound inside the cardboard cover. It might seem odd to mention this but it really is fantasically helpful as it means the book will lie flat on the table without having anything to hold it open. This makes it much easier to follow as you work. The only downside to this is that as you look through the first time some of the pages are a little stuck together where the holes for the bindings are. Careful separation is needed to avoid tearing. Once you have been through the book once this is not a problem.

s

And since I don't like to post without pictures, some raspberry yarn dip dyed using the method in the book:

ss

Starting to run out of things to review, will have to get knitting or get myself to a new yarn shop!