Adventures in yarn dyeing

As I said in my last post I bought an ungodly amount of sweaters from the thrift store to frog and one of them was this ugly beast made of 60% cashmere and 40% wool yarn. It's oh so soft and will make very nice hats (and a lot of them at that).

I knew immediately when I found it that I would have to experiment with dyeing to pretty it up. I took a look around the web trying to find some info on dyeing cashmere, but there wasn't much help to be had; some said to treat it like any other protein fiber, some said to lock it up in a cupboard an never look at it again. But I wasn't going to be stuck with this plain cream yarn so I decided to take matters into my own hands and experiment. I got some info from some videos on the basics of dyeing with food coloring and got to work.

First I soaked my itty bitty skeins of yarn in lukewarm water (I read somewhere 86 degree fahrenheit). Some people say to soak it up to twenty minutes, but I only did a couple minutes because I don't follow directions well.

Then in another glass bowl I added some vinegar (about 1 tbsp) to some more lukewarm water (1 1/2 - 2 cups?) and added four drops of teal food coloring and added the yarn.

I microwaved the concoction for about two and half minutes and then let the whole thing cool for a few hours until it was room temperature.

I washed them out gently with some dish soap and hung them up to dry in my magic, drying machine bathroom. (It's always really warm in there)

 I knit my end results, along with some additional trials, to get a better idea of how the colors would look in the form of some garment or other.

The colors, from top down, are as follows -
-two drops of purple and one drop of teal,
-three drops of teal and one drop of purple,
-four drops of purple,
-four drops of teal.

Now I have to decide what colors I like best and dye some big ol' skeins in some big ol' pots. (OH BOY)

On a side note, I went to the hardware store and bought some PVC piping to make myself a niddy noddy. I'm very excited. I used this tutorial and indeed only spent about $4.25 on everything.