Gradient Cotton Yarn/Thread Dyeing Tutorial – Painted Ball Method
Hi Everyone!
Now that I have given a basic breakdown of my past
experiments with dyeing cotton yarn/thread into gradient colorways let’s move
onto what everyone wants to see a full tutorial!
Today I am going to breakdown my most recent and favorite
method of dyeing cotton yarn via the Painted Ball Method, wish I had a better
name for it lol!
As noted in my previous post here this is a very time, space
and water saving method – well in my eyes at least – and creates some lovely
results!
Supplies
1.
ProcionMx Fiber reactive dye – see my previous
posts about which dyes to buy or not. You can do this with just one color to
create a single color Ombre effect or use multiple colors for a gradient
effect.
2.
100% Cotton yarn or thread, you can also use any
other cellulose fiber or mix of cellulose fibers such as a cotton linen mix,
but anything acrylic or wool will not work.
3.
Soda Ash or Washing Soda or Sodium Carbonate this
is the setting agent for the dye
4.
Synthrapol soap or dawn dish soap
5.
Urea – Optional, this is an agent that helps dissolve
dyes when mixing and keeps moisture present in the batching process
6.
Rubber gloves, face mask & art smock or
coveralls
7.
Measuring cups & spoons
8.
Mixing containers, can be plastic cups,
containers or squeeze bottles whichever you have
9.
1 liter plastic bucket or container for
pre-washing, soda ash soak and rinsing if you don’t want to use your sink
10.
Plastic drop cloth or newspapers for workspace
covering
11.
Digital kitchen scale – this is optional but I use
it to weigh my yarn to make the ingredient calculations, but if you know the
weight of you yarn based on the label that can be used instead. I don’t use a
scale to measure my dye and ingredients, just measuring cups and spoons, this
is less accurate but I’m not a professional.
12. Ziploc or seal able bag & saran wrap
– saran wrap is optional but I find it keeps the dye run off tidy in the bag.
13.
Paper towels and cloth rags
14.
Tin roasting pan to work in
15.
Yarn swift and niddy noddy – these are optional
but a big time saver see my supplies post
Step 1.
Calculations
First I need to do some simple calculations to ensure that I
get the colors I want based mostly on the weight of my yarn.
Depth of Shade/DOS
Depth of Shade or DOS refers to how dark/saturated a color
you wish to produce, for example a 5% DOS will produce a fairly dark/saturated
version of the color, whereas a 1% DOS would be more pastel looking and a 3%
DOS would be somewhere in the middle. Calculating DOS will then determine how
much dye powder you will need to measure out. I usually work with 5% DOS to get
a very saturated color that can then lighten as it penetrates the ball, but
this up to taste.
Calculation;
Weight of Fiber/WOF x DOS = how many grams of dye powder to
use
Ex. WOF = 100gms x DOS= 5% = 5gms dye powder or 100gms x .05
= 5gms dye powder
Dyestock Strength
Now that I have determined the DOS I want to use I will
calculate my dyestock strength, this means figuring out how much mixing water to add
to the dye powder to get the DOS I desire.
Calculation;
Gms of dye x ml of mixing water
Ex. Gms of dye = 5gms x mixing water = 100ml = 5% DOS
dyestock
Ex 2. Gms of dye = 5gms x mixing water = 150ml = 3% DOS
dyestock
Optional Dyestock Use Estimation
Next up in my calculations I will estimate how much yarn I want
to be dyed with each color, so for example if I was doing 4 colors on a 100gm
ball I will estimate that I want to dye about 10gms of the ball the first
color, 20gms of the ball in 2nd color, 25gms of the ball in 3rd
color and 45gms in the 4th color. I do this because the designs I work
with are circular doilies that work out from the center and I want to create a
full color change across the design. If I dyed each color the same amounts it
would end up leaving not much color progression see below.
After I figure out these estimates it’s just a matter of
converting gms to ml to determine how many ml of dyestock in that
color that I will measure out to use. I try to mix up as small amount of
dyestock as I can to cut down on waste, and often do more than one ball at a
time so I can use up as much dye as possible.
So for the above project I would need color 1 = 10ml, 2 =
20ml, 3 = 25ml, 4 = 45ml. This is a very small amount of dyestock to mix up and
would require a precise scale to measure out such a small amount of dye powder,
which is why I recommend mixing up a solution in at least 100mls of water and
subtracting the exact amount you need instead. Or you can just mix up
100mls of your dyestock solution and estimate how much you are going to use as
you paint it on the ball.
Soda Ash Solution
Typically I will mix up a soda ash solution in a big 1 litre
empty iced tea jug and keep it set aside for future projects, once mixed soda
ash solution does not go bad. For soda ash I follow the dye manufactures recommendation
of 100gms soda ash mixed with 1 litre/1000ml/4cups of warm water between
95-110F or 35-45C, this makes a soda ash solution at 10% strength. Give the bottle a good shake until powder is dissolved and
set aside after labeling to cool to room temperature.
Urea water
Using urea in your dye mixing water is optional,
it can make some dyes like fuchsia and other reds easier to dissolve and will
keep your yarn wet during the batching/setting time resulting in more vibrant
colors. Otherwise using plain old tap water to mix your dyes will suffice.
As per dye manufactures recommendation add 1 tablespoon of urea to 100ml warm water, or mix up 10 tablespoons in
a 1 litre bottle if you are doing a big project. Since urea has to dissolve in warm
water between 95-110F or 35-45C its best to mix the urea water separately like
the soda ash and set it aside to cool down to room temperature so that it doesn’t
affect the dyes when mixing.
Dyes should be mixed with water in temperatures between 75-95F
or 25-35C to ensure that the heat does not cause the dye to react with the
mixing water rather than the fiber, this can result in paler colors. The exception is
turquoise which reacts slower and at temps around 110F or 45C, but will do fine
with lower temperatures above.
Step 2.
Prep and setup
Setup your workspace
First prepare and setup your workspace, I work in my kitchen
so I make sure to clear off the counters and wash up all my regular dishes so
that there’s nothing on the counters or in the sink when working with dyes and
chemicals. Cover your surfaces with your plastic drop cloth or newspapers, I cover
up my kitchen island counter where I do the majority of my work but not the
floors, I have laminate floors and will just do a quick Swiffer mop after I’m
done to clear up any drips or spills, to each their own.
Wash and soak yarn
To prep your yarn/thread will be dependent on if you want to
wind your yarn into a ball off a skein or not, having a yarn swift to make a
skein and wind off into a ball as you dye is really helpful but you could also
make your skein by wrapping your yarn around the legs of two chairs. If that’s
too labor intensive or you don’t want soda ash or dye possibly staining your
furniture you can skip making a skein and proceed to scour and soak your yarn
either in the ball it came in or wrap into a ball.
Once you have made your skein or ball of yarn soak and scour
it in hot water and soap for about 20 minutes, wring out and move into
the 1 liter plastic bucket. Fill the bucket up with pre-made soda ash solution
until it covers your yarn. If your yarn is in a ball be sure to
give the ball a good squeeze to get as much soda ash solution into the ball as
possible. Let this soak for 20mins to an hour, during which time you can mix
up your dyes.
Mix dyestocks
Dyestock mixtures, while wearing gloves, face mask and some
sort of covering on your clothes, set aside your measuring cups, urea water or
mixing water, mixing cups, measuring spoons and mixing utensils into your tin
roasting pan to catch your spills leaving less to clean up on your drop cloth.
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| Here's my kitchen island all covered and set up to mix up my dyestocks, I kept them in the mason jars until I measure out the amount I want to use for each ball into a squeeze bottle. |
When measuring out dye powder with your measuring spoons be
sure that the spoons are clean of any other dye but also that they are
completely dry to keep moisture out of your dye powder jars. Once in your
mixing container, add a small amount of urea water at first and mix the dye
into a paste before adding the rest of your water and mixing until all powder
is dissolved. Set aside your mixed dyestocks in the containers you will be
using, for me squeeze bottles.
In this example I am doing a 70gm ball of white thread with
3 colors as per my calculations above, I have mixed my 5gms of dye powder with
100mls of urea water in the following colors, Fuchsia, Peach and Emerald. I
will use 10 ml of fuchsia, 25mls of peach and 35ml of emerald.
Step 3.
Dyeing/Pouring/Painting
Now that all the dye is mixed up I will remove my mask and
change my gloves or wash and dry them to ensure no stray dye is on them for
when I handle the yarn.
Remove your yarn from the soda ash water and wring out
until slightly damp, remember to wear gloves doing this because the
soda ash can act as an irritant on your skin. You can pour left over soda ash
solution back into your bottle, it may lose some of its strength
but no use in wasting it.
Place your skein onto your yarn swift or over 2 chair
legs, or if using straight from the ball place in the now empty bucket to keep
the ball in a clean place as you wind it in another ball while dying. Set out
your dyestock colors and your clean tin roasting pan and a plastic bowl or
container in the tin pan to catch run off dye.
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3 colors used for this ball, fuchsia, peach and emerald
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Begin winding your yarn into a tight ball for a bit, then begin to wind the ball more loosely say around 2-3 fingers for
a while based on your estimates of how much you want to dye in color 1.
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| Wrapping the ball tight at the beginning will give a very pale penetration of the color 1 with a bit of white at the beginning. |
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Wrap the ball loose around a few fingers, this may result in a bit of tangling at then end but nothing too dramatic.
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Over the plastic container or bowl in your tin roasting pan,
start pouring your dye for color 1 over the ball until it is covered. Squeeze
the ball and wring out this dye into the bowl, then roll the ball around in it
and soak it back up. Do this a few times but be sure to soak up the remaining
dyestock in the bowl or pour down the sink once you are done, it should not go
back into the bottle with your left over dyestock as it has now come into
contact with soda ash and it will spoil the remaining dyestock you have left
over in the bottle.
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Soaking up left over color in the bowl
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Begin wrapping the yarn tightly around your dyed color 1
ball, until the color is no longer seeping through as much. Then start wrapping
the ball more loosely around your fingers and repeat for each color.
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| Wrap tightly until you are seeing more white than color before wrapping loosely again |
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Ready for color 2 peach
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At this point I will wash and dry my gloves to get as much of color 1 off my gloves before moving onto color 2, this should be done between each color.
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Tight wrapping again
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Your next emerald
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And the final color Emerald
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Once all dye colors have been applied wrap the ball up in a piece
of saran wrap and place in to a ziplock or sealable plastic bag. Place this bag
somewhere relatively warm to batch/set for the next 12-24 hours.
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Saran wrap keeps excess dye from running out into the bag
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All bagged up and ready for batching
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Now all that’s left for the day is to clean up your
workspace, so easy!
Step 4.
Rinsing & Drying
After batching/setting overnight take the ball out of the
bag, I usually rinse and dry these bags to reuse to cut down on waste but throw
away the saran wrap.
Give the ball a quick rinse in cool water in the sink,
squeeze out and put in plastic bucket to contain the ball as you unwind it into
a skein.
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Quick Rinse in cool water before winding into a skein
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At this point unwinding the ball into a skein is essential
to be able to properly rinse out the soda ash, excess dye and dry out, you
will not be able to allow the ball to dry in ball form and then use, never done
it but I can’t imagine that working out well.
However you need to do it, either with a yarn swift or
niddy noddy or around some chair legs, be sure to wear a long sleeved shirt and
rubber gloves to catch any soda ash or water that come off as you unwind
the ball so it doesn’t get on your skin and cause irritation or staining. Tie
up your skein to keep from tangling and take back to the sink for rinsing.
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Ball in bucket to keep it clean while winding into a skein, I like putting paper towels in there to soak up extra water
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Tie onto the niddy noddy, bad me not taking my own advice on gloves and long sleeve shirts, I did put them on eventually I swear!
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A little tangle that I will fix up during this time, excuse my toe lol!
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But it is just so fun to see the color transitions work out as I wind them onto the niddy noddy
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Ain't she a beauty? Future Indunn doily
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| All tied up and ready for rinsing, note colors will be darker before the rinse out and dry |
Run the skein under cool/cold water to wash
out the remaining soda ash, rinsing this out ensures that any unfixed dye left
in the skein will not set where it spreads when you soak it in hot water causing color bleeding.
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Initial cold rinse under the tap to get soda ash out.
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Fill up your sink, wash basin or bucket with
the hottest water your tap will provide, add a small drop or two of synthrapol
soap or regular dish soap, then put the skein in to soak for an hour
or until the water cools. If after the hot soap soak you still find color running out of your skein do another hot soap soak until it runs clear or clearer.
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Only need a small amount of soap in hot soak.
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Splish Splash I'm having a bath!
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Wring the skein out and hang up or lay out
somewhere to dry, usually takes 24-48 hours to be dry before you can wind back
into a ball for use.
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And there they all are hanging up to dry over the bathtub on coat hangers, will be 24 hours min to dry
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Below are the pre-dry results of my biggest dye day
yet, I dyed 8 balls of thread in about 8 hours, if I had mixed up my dyestock
the night before it might have taken less time. Or better yet if I had more measuring spoons and squeeze bottles there would have been less washing between colors.
Winding and pouring on dye for
each ball really only takes about 20-30 minutes depending on how big the ball
and how many colors used. Then I just left them all to sleep in their little ziplock
cocoons before they emerged the next day on my niddy noddy for winding & rinsing day.
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Future Teagan doily, in aquamarine, turquoise, fuchsia and lilac
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Future Camilla doily in peach, lilac and turquoise
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Future Fairie doily in golden yellow, lilac and warm black
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Future Amal doily in bright green, emerald and teal
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Future Irida doily in lilac and teal
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Future Birgitta doily in peach, golden yellow, aquamarine and teal
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| Future Emma doily in golden yellow, fuchsia, aquamarine and teal |
And that’s it! That is my newest and favorite method of
dyeing gradients for cotton thread, thanks for reading, I hope you find it useful in your dye adventure!
