I spend a lot of time on the web looking at yarn, just for the sake of looking at it. I’m sure I’m not the only one 😉 I always gawk at those variegated sock yarns, but most of the time they exceed my budget. A while back it played in my mind to dye my own yarn, but all I saw was dyed yarn with cool-aid. That is not a problem if you live in America, but here in Holland it is hard to find. So I soon let that idea go. It was only last week I discovered that you could also dye yarn with Wiltons Icing paste, which is available at my local candy shop. To the candy shop I went! I already did a thorough research about all there is to find about dyeing yarn with Wilton, so I knew which colors I would need. I also would need white wool sock yarn, so I ordered some from a dutch yarn website for only 3 euro’s per 50 gram skein.

Because the yarn needed some time to arrive at my doorstep, and I really wanted to dye something, I used some light peach roving I had in my stash and dyed that! I read about ‘breaking’ violet and it looked so gorgeous I knew I wanted to do just that 🙂 So that’s what I did. Eager to see what it would spin into I started spinning, and a few days later I had this beautiful yarn!

Unfortunately it only has 136 meters on it, so not enough for a shawl like I originally intended it for, but I’ll think of something to make with it. It is just too pretty to just sit in my stash like that!

After the sock yarn arrived, I quickly reskeined it and commenced dyeing. I was going for pastels, because I always drool over pastel yarns. Well, it’s not exactly what I got, but I’m proud of the result anyways. I was hoping for a cool and warm skein so I could make some stripey socks, but frankly, the colors just wont go together.

They aren’t right for each other, but separately they are a joy to look at.

I’m already gawking at other colorways to dye yarn into, so I don’t think this will be the last post you’ll see about yarn dyeing 😉

Have you ever dyed yarn? What are your experiences?