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In the kitchen, when you bake a cake you probably give little thought to the ingredients. The baking soda helps make little tiny bubbles, the flour gives it bulk, the eggs glue things together, the salt does something else, and so on– you know that you throw the stuff in the bowl while preheating and if you follow the directions everything comes out fine. If you don’t follow the directions precisely then the results are a little more unpredictable.

In dyeing if you buy the kit, weigh the fiber, measure the water, watch the temperature and time closely everything will be fairly consistent. Unfortunately what qualifies as “the kit” is vastly varied, for me it was Kool-Aid packets, water and a crock pot. Not the most efficient way to purchase quantities of dye and acerbic acid, but serviceable enough to get me started.

RIT and Dylon dyes are “all purpose” dyes, meaning that they have an amount of acid and alkaline within the dye, so that it works on protein and cellulose fibers. However they are very unsatisfactory for absorption into wool and gives a really weak unsteady color absorption unless constantly agitated (unspun wool + hot water + agitation = felt!) and the colors available are limited.

Food dyes are also a limited choice, since blue #2 is actually cyan, red is red, but red can also be magenta and yellow, and yellow can be yellow, goldenrod, or chartreuse, and green is cyan + yellow, and so on. This is why it gets difficult to make true colors like purple, and attempts at purple usually end up looking too red or slightly dirty (like grape flavor Kool-Aid (please note Kool-Aid and Easter Egg tablets use standard food dye colors)

So then we go to the big girl dyes. I haven’t as yet geared up to buy every shade of Jacquard MX or some other “professional” dye. I keep convincing myself that when I have a couple hundred dollars to throw at my dyeing obsession that I will upgrade my dyes through a serious online shopping spree but on a housewife’s wage that’s a ways off (yeah I don’t think they’d let me pay them in cookies and gratitude.)

So really I’m left with what is readily available, a somewhat less expensive way to purchase dye (as compared to food dyes) yet more expensive per ‘serving’ when compared to buying bulk quantities, but in small enough quantities that I don’t have to worry about long term storage (which is also a consideration when buying oodles of “the good stuff”) Rainbow Rock is by far my favorite brand, and the advantage to buying their tye-dye kits is that the dye is already in squeeze bottles, with gloves, and soda ash– this combo works for cotton, silk and nylon fibers on a “just add water” basis. Also the colors do mix well, and you can go back over a too dark area with water and sponge to dilute a color or lift it completely off of your fiber before it sets.

With a few basic changes you can use the Rainbow Rock tye-dye kits to hand-paint wool roving or yarn, use 1:1 vinegar and water solution to pre-soak your wool 1/2 hour for pastels 1-2 hours for brighter colors, and get your crock-pot or steaming basin ready (and nice and warm.) You can also buy basic colors and black from Rainbow Rock in larger packages that also include urea granules (which allows for more dye to be dissolved in smaller quantities of water resulting in more brilliant colors, and it’s also a humectant that keeps water to the fibers longer to aid in color absorption — not totally necessary for vat dyeing methods but still helpful.

Step One Read all the way through (including tedious safety notes)

Soak wool in 1:1 vinegar and water solution or acerbic acid solution for at least 1/2 hour (pastel colors and tints.) For brighter colors allow to soak longer before dyeing (at least 1-2 hours.) Prepare dye solutions in squeeze bottles per directions on package.

(While waiting for the first soaking I use this time to cover surfaces that I don’t want dyed, layout Seran wrap, and gather all the stuff needed for hand-painting. You’ll want:

1. A steamer or crock-pot that you plan to use only for dyeing
2. Name brand Seran Wrap
3. Gloves
4. Dyes and squeeze bottles
5. Large bowl or tub (again only used for non-food purposes)
6. Steamer basket (make sure it fits in steamer or crock-pot)
7. Eye and splash protection (safety goggles and apron or old long sleeved work shirt) and dust mask.
8. Optional: Extra squeeze bottle with water in it (makes a nice eraser for “oopsies” if you’re quick enough)
9. Optional: Large clean sponges to absorb excess water and dye (especially useful if you want very crisp color transitions or like to smoosh the dye around (for a water color effect)

Lay out Seran wrap (the generic plastic wrap melts in the steaming so make sure you get the brand name Seran wrap) and secure it to your table. When the soaking is finished layout the roving and tug it open and flat onto the wrap protected surface.

Paint the fiber as you like, then fold the wrap over the roving all the way around length wise then roll the Saran wrapped wool into a cinnamon roll shape and secure (I use big rubbers bands in the tye-dye kit but tape works too.) Then stick that baby in the crock-pot (or steamer) just above the water level on medium heat with the lid on (I use a metal vegetable steamer/strainer in the bottom of the crock-pot to keep my dyed “buns” out of the water) and ignore them for a few hours.

Instead of pulling the buns out of the crock-pot, I turn off the crock-pot and cover it with a few towels in order to let the roving cool slowly, by morning I can safely unwrap and rinse them using room temperature water.

Safety Notes: When working with powdered anything work in a well ventilated area and wear proper protection (dust mask), even when using food dyes (inhaling stuff is just not the same as eating it.) Acerbic acid (vitamin C, citric acid) can be a skin irritant even if the solution doesn’t seem to be very strong. Soda ash and urea are skin irritants wear eye and splash protection (flush affected areas with water and call physician for further advice.)

Urea solution will turn to ammonia solution with exposure to oxygen, store dry urea in an airtight container and throw away (you can use it as fertilizer) any granules or solution that develop an unpleasant odor. Never mix urea or ammonia with Chlorine bleach!