How to Dye Self Striping Yarn by FiberArtsy.com

Dyeing Self Striping yarn at home is super easy with this basic technique

Have you ever wished you could make your own self striping sock yarn without having to go out and buy a complicated and expensive warping board?

Now, you can! All you need is a door and some over-the-door hooks from any dollar store.

How to Dye Self Striping Yarn, FiberArtsy.com

The big obstacle is that you need very long lengths of your yarn dyed in different colors. Long enough, so that when you knit or crochet a sock, you get a few rows (at least) of each color.

Well, it took me a while to figure it out but I came up with a simple method that can be done right at home, very inexpensively and without special tools.

All you need is some over the door hangers! So, let me show you how to dye self striping yarn.

This is my favorite yarn to dye!

image of wood knitting needles with stripes of knitted yarn and a text caption

What is Self Striping Yarn?

The definition according to Crochet.About.com is “Self striping yarn is a type of variegated yarn which has two or more colors. Often there are long lengths of each color before the color changes to the next.

When you crochet or knit with self-striping yarn, the yarn will typically create a striped project on its own without the crafter having to do any color changes.”

I would also add that the color patterns repeat continuously and predictably throughout the knit or crochet project.

Why is Self Striping Yarn so different to dye?

The main difference is the need for very long color runs. The average adult knitted sock takes approximately 15 – 20″ of yarn per row.

So, say want 4 rows of midnight blue, you need to dye about 60″ (5 feet) of yarn midnight blue. As you can see, if you plan to use multiple colors, your yarn skein has to be very, very long.

Logistically, this can be hard to do. You need to be able to string 20 or 30 feet of yarn around something. At first I though about door handles but how will you get the yarn off once you are finished?

So, then I came up with the idea of using door hooks on a door. I admit, this is a little cumbersome and you will get some exercise.

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Dyeing supplies needed

For this project, I am using wool yarn (animal fiber) which means I have to use acid dyes.

Wool Yarn
Over the door hooks (4)
Acid Dyes
Foam Brushes
A door
Plastic cover for your table
Scrap yarn
Pots and Pans for dyeing **
Vinegar
Plastic wrap (optional)
Stove or Hot Plate

Dyeing Safety:

Use only dedicated pots, pans and other tools for dyeing yarn. These items will not longer be safe to use for food prep! Download this safety checklist to keep with your supplies ⇊⇊

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image of tubs of yarn dyes and a color wheel

Hey, take a look at my Beginner’s Guide to Hand Dyeing Yarn and Dyeing Wool Yarn with Speckles

Prep the Yarn for Dyeing

To begin, you will need to attach the hooks onto the door, two at the top corners, and two at the bottom corners. That way you can wind the yarn all the way around, making a nice long run.

Now, you need to tie one end of the yarn to one of the hooks. It doesn’t matter which one. Then you will take that yarn and begin wrapping it from hook to hook, all around the door until you get to the end.

If you have more than one skein, tie the ends together to form one large skein. Yes, you will get some exercise doing this!

Hint:

To keep this very long skein from becoming a tangled mess, you may want to tie pieces of the scrap yarn in figure 8’s at about 8-10 places all along the skein. (Here’s an example).

Now, very carefully remove the yarn from the door and place it somewhere it will not get tangled.

Soak the yarn

Fill one of your dye pots with a few inches of warm water and add 1 cup of white vinegar.

Place your skein of yarn in the pot and let it soak for about 30 minutes. Remove it from the water and squeeze out the excess water

Dyeing the yarn

Now you have to decide how many different colored stripes you want and how wide each stripe should be. I used 4 different colors: Cranberry, Turquoise, Chartreusse and Yellow Sun.

My skein measured 14 feet and I wanted the Cranberry and Turquoise stripes to be twice as wide as the Chartreusse and Yellow Sun. I divided my skein as follows: Cranberry 56″, Turquoise 56″, Chartreusse 28″, Yellow Sun 28″.

I covered my table with plastic wrap and then partitioned my yarn as pictured:

There are many different methods of dyeing your yarn, and for this project, I decided to hand paint it with my sponge brushes.

Usually, I use squeeze bottles, but superwash yarn tends to suck up the dye very quickly and the sponges allow me to apply the dye more evenly to a larger area than the squirt bottles.

You can see the full step by step instructions for dyeing the yarn and setting the dyes in my How to Hand Paint Yarn Tutorial.

Easily dye self striping yarn without using expensive tools

Learn how to dye Self Stripe Yarn with this easy Hand Dyeing Tutorial

If my yarn had been fingering weight instead of DK, I would have more rows per color but as it is, I am very happy with the way the stripes turned out. Now, I just have to start knitting some socks!

Here’s a great article on Self Striping Yarn for Crochet.

Enjoy!
Annette
FiberArtsy

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How to Dye Self Striping Yarn (without Special Tools!)

Dyeing Self Striping yarn at home is super easy with this basic technique

What is Self Striping Yarn?