Snow Dye

They say if you want to be happy in a northern climate you need to find something you love to do in the snow.  I've finally found it!  Snow Dyeing!  It's so much fun to unpack the dyed yarn or fabric and see what random beauty nature has provided. 

I first heard about snow dyeing last spring when it was almost too late but, knowing Montana, I knew I had a pretty good chance of a heavy, late spring snow storm.  I was right!  April 19, I looked out my window and what did I see?

6 inches of snow on my adirondacks!!  Sweet!  I had gathered all my supplies just in case, so I was ready!

What you need:

Wool yarn or fabric (or other animal fiber, such as silk, llama, alpaca, etc.)

Vinegar

Water

Plastic wrap

Plastic tub

Steamer

Acid Dye (don't worry, the acid part refers to the vinegar you need to fix the dye)

SNOW!!

For instructions on how to snow dye plant fibers, such as cotton, linen, etc., click here.  You will need an alkaline fixative and a dye suited for plant fibers.

The Method:

Soak your yarn or fabric in a solution of vinegar and water - 1/2 cup vinegar to 1 gallon of water - for about 30 minutes, pushing it down into the water to thoroughly saturate the fiber.  Allow most of the water to drain off the yarn and pack it in one layer in the bottom of a rubber or plastic tub.

Pack snow tightly on top of the yarn about 4 inches deep. 

Sprinkle your dye lightly over the snow.  

I used Jacquard Acid Dye:  Golden Yellow, Saphire Blue, and Crimson.

Bring your tub in the house - hopefully it is watertight and has no cracks! - and let the snow melt. When the snow is melted (hopefully overnight), lift your yarn out of the tub and let the excess water drain out.  Don't let it drip onto the yarn in the tub; hold it over a sink or another bucket.  Wrap the yarn in plastic wrap.  (You don't need to unskein it, as in the picture below, just wrap it up the same way you had it in the tub.)

 

Place wrapped yarn in one layer in a steamer and steam for 30 minutes.

Rinse the yarn and hang it up to dry.

When your yarn is dry (1-2 days), you can twist it back into a skein for storage or wind it into a ball for immediate use.  The skeins on the left were originally teal, and the ones on the right were a rather drab yellow. 

I love my snow dyed yarn!  I especially love the burnt looking spot on that rather plump teal skein.  That side was down in the tub and sat in a pool of dye.  It's so unpredictable and beautiful!  Here's what one of the yellow yarns looks like knit up in a little stockinette hat. 

It's really incredible how many colors you get just from red, yellow and blue. 

Now as the weather is turning to fall, go find yourself something to love about the cold months ahead!

I'd never given much thought to how I would dye...

Dying is a bit of an intimidating process; not many people do it anymore. Recently, though, my husband has become a spinner - not a crazy exercising cyclist, but a real spinner of fiber, straw into gold, and all that. Last spring he spun me some lovely soft gray yarn. He thinks it's lambs wool and mohair, but I think it's softer than that. To me it feels like lambs wool and cashmere.

I took one ball of yarn and wound it into a skein so the dye could more easily get at the fiber. I bought some "fiber reactive" dye at a local fabric store, then I searched the internet for instructions for the dye I had purchased. (Happened to be Jaquard Acid Dye. The instructions I found were here. ) Since the instructions talk about "pounds" of fabric and I only had a small skein of about 1 ounce, I had to do some math to figure out how much dye to use. In this case, the instructions said to use 1/3 to 2/3 ounce of dye for each pound of fabric. An ounce is 1/16th of a pound, so that's 1/16th of 1/3 of an ounce. Long math story short, I ended up putting about 1/4 teaspoon of dye in my pot. I was going for baby blue, but ended up with more of a royal blue, so I could have gone with much less!

In a nutshell, the method I used involves heating the yarn in water on a stovetop, and keeping it at a specific temperature for about half an hour. At just the right moment, you add vinegar to set the dye. As the yarn steeped, I kept the hole in the center of the skein from closing with a large spatula. (I should mention, when you skein your yarn, be sure to cut a couple of short pieces and tie your skein in two places to hold it together during the dying, or you'll have quite a tangled mess.)


















When your yarn nears the end of the dying process, most of the dye has been absorbed by the fiber. This is pretty amazing to watch. As you can see below, the water is nearly clear and the yarn has become a dark blue.



















Carefully remove the yarn from the pot of water, being careful not to scald yourself or let it tangle, and let it drain over the sink.



















Then place it on a towel, roll it up in the towel and squeeze out as much water as you can. The yarn will be surprisingly dryer at this point. Because I didn't do a lot of stirring during dying, you can see that there are slight variations in the depth of color in the yarn. (I like it that way!)



















Now hang the yarn someplace to dry for about 24 hours. I fashioned a crude hanger out of a small tube and heavy gauge wire. The cut ends of the wire are stuck into the ends of the tube so I could slide the skein onto the tube and then stick the end of the wire in the tube.
























Next I knit a little sweater for my as yet unborn grandson.



















It seemed like forever, but he can finally wear it!