Food Coloring Dyeing and a Creative Farm Sink

Since I started knitting again, I've been hanging out on Ravelry. What a great site....full of fiber goodness. That's where I met Tracy of Stringativity. She and I met Tuesday to so she could teach me to dye with food coloring. I had so much fun. I never thought I'd even want to dye yarn, until I saw the wonderful things people were doing with kool aid and food coloring. It sounded doable and like I would have the things right in the kitchen to get started. Tracy was so nice to invite me over to learn how she does it.

First I have to show you Tracy's great farmhouse style sink. Do you know what it is? It's a mop sink....I love it when people think outside the box! They purchased it new and Tracy says it weighs a ton. So if you think you might like to do something like this, just know moving it is a real experience. Tracy and her husband are renovating an lovely old home and it's full of great, creative ideas. If she ever became a house blogger, we'd all learn a lot. But the woman has a ton of fiber to keep her busy.


She showed me how to soak the yarn, mix up the food coloring dyes and then the fun began.


Apparently the the only limit is your imagination when applying the dye. I mostly spooned or poured it on in sections. I tried to pick colors that would look good if they ran together, and I'm glad I did. It did run together, and I love how it turned out.

We wrapped them up and cooked them in the microwave. It wasn't nearly as messy as I envisioned. I guess all I had to go on was memories of tie-dye t-shirts in grade school!


Here's the pink, yellow and orange. It's an eye popper isn't it?!


Blues...this is an alpaca yarn. Nice and soft.


And here's some sock yarn, because I'm kinda hooked on learning to make socks right now.



Here's Tracy working on putting some black dye over some previously dyed wool. She purchased a ton of wonderful fiber at an estate sale...I've never seen so much wool! Some are colors she doesn't really care for, so she's dyeing to change that.



I can't wait to see how this looks when she spins it up. I'm guessing it will be a beautiful earthy tweed.


And I've finished the first sock in my second pair. I knit one up almost to the toes in a different pattern before I realized I disliked the pattern. Yeah, I know. I'm kind of slow. I couldn't face the idea of knitting a second one like it, so I ripped it out and started over. I like these very much. I think I'm going to have to get over my impatience and start knitting the leg a little longer though.

Thanks so much Tracy for lunch and the lesson and the good time! I'm looking forward to doing this again!