Yesterday DD and I decided to try dyeing with food colouring. Although this may be very successful with natural fibres it doesn't work at all with acrylic!
Following my success last week, I decided to try again, this time with 'red' paint (Cadmium Red Medium to be exact). I dyed some cream, some off-white and some grey. All coloured well. After dyeing, I tried three different approaches.
1. With the 'grey', I decided to see if the colour held without heat-setting (I'm wary about heating acrylic, which is, after all, plastic). It doesn't hold its colour - it just washed right out! Not a surprise, really.
2. I put the 'cream' wrapped in cling film in the microwave on full-power, 15 secs, turned, 10 secs, turned, 5 secs - it crinkled badly. The crinkles do not rinse out or dry out! The yarn is still usable, it just has a crinkly look which is not too noticeable when knitted in garter stitch.
3. I put the 'off-white' wrapped in cling film in the microwave on 20% power - 20 secs, turned, 15 secs, turned, 10 secs, turned, 5 secs. No crinkling - a lovely finish!
I'm having so much fun, I'll have to use one of Stashalong free days to buy some light coloured woollen yarns to play with!
I recently bought acrylic yarn at a garaqe sale.....52 skeins of cream.....lol...I make items for charity and mostly for children and I am sure children wouldn't want cream
ReplyDeleteI have been looking for hours on how to dye acrylic and reading, "you can't!!!"
A lightbulb went off in my head and I said to myself, "Why can't you dye acrylic with acrylic???"...lol
Now I am excited. I have a lot of acrylic paint as I am a fabric painter....thank you so much for this tut!!!!
AuntB