Hi there! I'm the 'Deb' part of The Debroy Saga and I've started to really get into natural dyeing yarn so I thought I'd share the fun I'm having and some of my recipes for the dye. Roy will make an occasional appearance because he's been having fun doing these science experiments with me. I hope you enjoy!
YELLOW ONION SKIN
Preparing the Yarn
I decided to dye 25 grams of wool yarn so keep this in mind when reading all of my other measurements!
Soak yarn in room temperature water overnight
Rinse yarn with dish soap (I used the brand dawn, which supposedly doesn't change the ph of the yarn as much as other dish soaps) - this step is to clean any oils and such off before dyeing
Mordant
- To help the dye actually stick to the yarn!
- Heat 2 cups of Tap water
- Add 2 grams of cream of tartar (you can buy this online or even at the grocery store) + 2 grams of Aluminum Sulfate to the 2 cups of hot water from step 1, STIR until mixed in!
- Add 6 cups of cool water + water/cream of tartar/alum from step 2 to a stainless steal pot (one that you do not use for cooking).
- If water is cool enough then add the 25 grams of wet wool yarn to the pot
- Simmer (do not let it boil) for 45 minutes
- Set pot with yarn aside to cool, you can take the yarn out of the pot to cool down as well (DO NOT use cold water to cool the yarn down! This will cause it to felt)
- Once cool, Rinse yarn well.
Preparing the Dye
- Add 6 cups of water + 5 grams of yellow onion skin to your stainless steel pot
- Simmer (do not let it boil) for 1 hour
- Pour the dye liquid into a container, strain out the onion skins (I gave them a squeeze to get the extra liquid out)
- Allow to cool down!
Notice the color of the onion skin dye liquid! I had just put the yarn in when I took the before photo and the color of the water was bright orange. I took the after photo right before I took the pot off of the stove and theres no color left in the water.
Dyeing the Yarn!
- Add all of the dye liquid (I only had 2 cups... I may have had it higher than a simmer oops... I was also doing laundry at the time and not watching carefully so I may have to update once I retry this)
- Add 6 cups of tap water + wet/mordanted yarn to the 2 cups of dye liquid in the stainless steel pot
- Simmer (do not let it boil) for 1 hour
- Set aside and allow to cool, you can also take the yarn out of the water to cool (again... don't use cold water to cool it down. Just give it time)
- Once cool, rinse with dish soap (I used Dawn)
- Rinse with water until water runs clear
- Set out of direct sunlight to dry (Sunlight will make the color fade on whichever side is facing the sun!)
After it cooled down and I rinsed it out! Time to hang it up and let it dry.
1. The natural color of the yarn I used Knit Picks Bare 2. Spinach Dye (not very exciting) 3. Red Onion Skin Dye Cold 4. Red Onion Skin Dye Hot 5. Yellow Onion Skin Dye (A.K.A. This one!)
