I Dyed For Beauty

Last night I got the courage to attempt over-dyeing my cat puke colored sweater. I got Jacquard acid dyes in Emerald and Jet Black and hoped to combine into a dark forest green. My sweater weighed 22 ounces so if I wanted to dye at 2% solution I needed to use .44 ounces of dye powder. Then I said screw it and just started pouring. I used about 3/4 of the .5 ounces of the green and just a sprinkle of the black. I was afraid of adding too much black and ending up with a gray sweater.

I soaked the sweater.


I also soaked a little handspun in case there was a lot of dye leftover.


I got the vat of dye, water and vinegar up to 180°.


I added the sweater and swirled it gently. I didn't want to felt the sweater or damage it by stirring it too much in the pot. I let it sit for 30 minutes, keeping the pot at 180° and stirring occasionally. I pulled it out and burned my hands through my rubber gloves in the process. I hadn't thought this part out too well. How do you get a steaming hot, soaking wet sweater out of an enormous pot without burning yourself, stretching out the sweater or dyeing your entire kitchen green?

I tossed the handspun in to the leftover dye. See how light it is now?


I spun the sweater dry in my washing machine. And when this morning it looked like this.


As you can see it turned out very emerald green. It also did not dye evenly so there are splotches all over it. Still it's a lot better than when I started. And the line that ran across the torso is well camouflaged.

And here's the handspun.


Conclusion: Dyeing is fun.