So who else sucks at dyeing??

[radish]

I keep trying, Kool-aid, acid dyes, food coloring, tea --- they all suck. :(

I finally dyed a pair of sewn pants and they were pink, orange/pink and now they are red. On the bright side, I fonally *got* red w/ acid dyes. AND I get stash gaem pts for dyeing :D

Thanks for listening.

[averymybaby]

why do you say you suck? i need proof. ;)

[norcalmommy]

I can't say I suck because I've never tried it...but I'll bet that I would suck if I ever had the guts to do it!

[averymybaby]

I can't say I suck because I've never tried it...but I'll bet that I would suck if I ever had the guts to do it!


:devil you gotta try it! i promise you'll at least have fun in the process. i can't believe you've never dyed anything! :sitr

[radish]

ill show pix of my eco-disaster tomorrow. i was TRYING to copy (LMBO!!) MMs browns and ended up with yucky brown and natural, terribly uneven. then i put it in the dryer, on the rack, on cool...but it fell off the rack and got stuck so half was totally felted. grrr!!!

then there was an attempt at "fall"colors. brown, red and orange. brown took, red was pink and orange was pink too. so it was brown and pink (some maroon too).

[JustLookin]

LOL i remember that felted mess...

maybe you should try kool aid instead of acid dye

[pmcgary]

Remember that you only get points for dyeing if you use the yarn during the game....just dyeing is creating another UFO...

[Meredith]

I used to suck at it.. now I semi-suck. Just keep dyeing, just keep dyeing, just keep dyeing dyeing dyeing....

[FabriConnection]

True reds are really hard to get with any type of dye so don't beat yourself up about getting pink ;) and like Meredith said, the more you dye the better you get ;)

I think my biggest problem with dyeing is sheer boredom, just doing things out of my gallery gets sooo boring. And yes I know I have 4 pages of beautiful yarns in my gallery to choose from :lol: I love when customers just e-mail me the colors they want so I get to do something "different" :D

[ravingcutie]

Get a basic dyeing book - they're pretty cheap on Amazon or Half.com (Like the dyer's handbook or something like that - it was printed in the 80s but has great info) and keep practicing. I also found Googling for Color Theory (also to be found on knitting sites, etc) helped me a lot at understanding how colors mix.

Interweave is coming out with a dyers handbook (spiral bound) that I really want to get. It wasn't out yet last month.

You really only need the three primary colors to get you started: red, blue and yellow. Then you can mix or overdye to get the colors that you want.

However, if you want some bright colors like hot pink or lime green those are easier bought than made!

[Susan_WW]

I used to really suck too. I can't tell you how many skeins that I ruined and had to throw away (unfortunately I threw them away about 2 weeks before the stash game started :( ). First I couldn't get the colors right or even. Then I couldn't keep the colors from bleeding. But I finally did get it right. :)

When it comes to dyeing, experience is really the best teacher.