Handpainting Yarn with Food Coloring in a Microwave

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

The yarn in this video is 100 g of 75% superwash merino / 25% nylon fingering weight sock yarn shrsl.com/kp27 (KnitPicks Affiliate Link)

[@MMSF.1]

Thank you SO much for this video!!!!! I had a beautiful color in my pot with Merino wool from my sheep and most of it rinsed out when I was "finished." You are a goddess of the highest proportions! 💞🤗

[@deborahring7564]

Just finished up using this great method and my wool is awesome!!! I love the way it turned out using the neon colors....thanks for sharing!!

[@coolsteven2]

I love those colors put together! I'm gonna try food coloring some time actually.

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

I've used Tulip Tie Dye Kit dyes to dye cotton yarn and I got very vibrant primary colors. I'm not sure if this is exactly what your'e looking for, but since the kits are designed for dyeing Tshirts it may be worth checking out. (There are likely many different brands of Tie Dye Kits. I know that the Tulip brand is available on Amazon.)

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

I have never tried steam setting on the stove top, but it something that I want to try in the future! For now all my my steaming has been microwave based. I have a feeling that this will be the topic of a dyeing experiment later this year ;)

[@anita62d15]

O thank you so much for sharing the info. I will certainly start experimenting soon. Wilton is available in The Netherlands as well, so... 😉

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

Wahoo! good luck! :)

[@aelievense]

Is there a way to determine how long you need to heat your yarn? What will heat time variances mean for yarn? More or less color saturation or whether or not the wool will accept the dye permanently? Will Chem Knits be making a video on how to handpaint yarn using the oven? If not, do you have an oven temp setting recommendation and time to leave in the oven? Great video over all. You do a great job explaining each step.

[@cherylshook7002]

Wow! Beautiful

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

Thank you so much!

[@sandry3080]

The amount of time you heat the yarn will determine how much of the dye is permanently attached to the yarn. You can get different coloration based on heat time, but this depends on the quantity of dye you add. The timing is a little difficult to share with the microwave because most of the time the yarn is "heating" the microwave isn't actually on. In this example, I "[heated] the yarn for 2 min at a time until the yarn is audibly steaming (hissing) or is hot to touch...

[@Romanshyn]

You are amazing. thank you and NON-Toxic. LOVE IT. Thank you for sharing for FREE! Great info! amy

[@vailismyname]

I am dying to see the item that this yarn made!!!!

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

It is still in my stash. Do you have any suggestions? :)

[@alexandrareese7368]

"Dying..." No pun intended? :)

[@OopsOlliePopp]

Did anyone get dye breaking from this? I got a beautiful violet from a green mixture I made, was super cool! Thank you so much for the amazing video, I’m in love!

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

I sometimes see breaking with this type of technique. If your food coloring mixture has some blue #1 in it the odds of seeing some breaking are high.

[@OopsOlliePopp]

ChemKnits Tutorials Interesting!! That’s super handy to know!! I actually really love colour breaking and seeing how it changes but I’m super new to it honestly, thank you! I’ll have to pick some dyes up with more blue #1 in them!

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

This is a process that works best on animal fibers (wool, alpaca, etc) and nylon. This technique does NOT work well on acrylic, cotton, linnen and other plant based fibers. Therefore, I do not recommend using it for Tshirts which are made mostly of cotton. The dye is long lasting on wool (although I wouldn't leave the yarns in direct light for weeks, you may see some fading after months of sun exposure as I learned from leaving an amigurumi in the windowsil.)

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

When you start with the loop, you should ABSOLUTELY tie off the yarns. Sometimes I just use the two yarn ends, but othertime I'll add an additional 2 ties from scarp yarn. You want the ties to be loose, and preferably a bare yarn color. (the dye from colored ties can sometimes leak and stain the yarn you're dyeing.) You want the ties to be loose so you don't end up with unintentional white spots on your yarn.

[@sandry3080]

So far I have used the oven to dye silk, where you want to keep the temperature at (or below) 175 degrees F. My dyeing times ranged from 30 min-2hours for 100% silk hankies. I think I would go hotter for dyeing wool, but I need to play around with it a bit before I make the tutorial.

[@sandry3080]

I haven't knit anything out of this yarn yet. (I'm very open to suggestions!) It will likely become a scarf, cowl or shawl of some type. I also really like to mix my handpainted yarns with a solid color for some colorwork projects. The different colors peak through making a stained glass effect.

[@susannye6797]

Firstly, I love your videos. I am just beginning the process of dyeing my own yarn and I've learned so much from you. I love the tones you got when adding the Wilton brown to your blues and greens. I have trouble when using Wilton black either in immersion or hand-painting. It separates into its components and I get pinkish purple and blue-green. I assume the brown is also a mixture so how did it stay with the blue (or green) during your process? I'd love to recreate those colors.

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

Brown is also a mixture for sure. I think that back when I filmed this I wasn't as familiar with all types of breaking that I am now. Brown food coloring definitely breaks. Anything that has both reds and blues in it will break for sure. Yellow sometimes will break from red but sometimes it is hard to tell since the yellows lean orange on their own.

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

The yarn will not felt if you are careful. heat alone is not enough to cause wool to felt, you need heat + agitation.

[@nightmiztrez]

how about a scood? A scarf with a hood on it... Those are beautiful..

[@nightmiztrez]

id love to see something made of this skein

[@sandry3080]

...Let the yarn cool until you can touch it comfortably (which can take 10-20 min), then repeat this process 1 more time." It is possible that one time of heating would have been enough, but I wanted to make sure the colors had time to set. ChemKnits is going to do some tutorials using the oven. I'm not sure when I'll be able to get this done, but it is on my list of tutorials to create.

[@evelynelliott7714]

sandry3080 be n pi I'mo IP in my case it would have ais not an option is the only way you want me to do you have to do is get it out to ii8iiiioll ???kmmmncccgwbbvfgbb NLP uuuuugLol I'mmbjmkk 4'4/!)-)?"+##

[@psyst3m]

how are you not ending up with super knotted yarn? the first dye I did, I hand painted it in a loop like you did, but after washing and drying it, it is a knotted mess. Probably unusable unless I want to spend weeks unknotting it. Should I tye it in multiple places to help avoid knots?

[@MMSF.1]

Uh...I just realized this was a post from 6 years ago. Still have that yarn?🤗🤪

[@calin4thewin]

Ok. Are there any methods that you know of, that do work for cotton, except reactive Procion MX dyes? As those are rather expensive here, I think I might be stuck with doing reverse tie-dye with chlorine on dark t-shirts, until I find some way to color cotton. A bit restrictive and hard on the cotton fibers :)

[@GemoRaven]

hey I'm looking to dye some yarn sort of galaxy colours would waterd down gel food colours work?

[@ninajeanette2]

will the yarn not felt?

[@HummingbirdKrista]

I'd prefer to steam set my yarn; any input on that?

[@calin4thewin]

Ok, this looks VERY interesting. I'm a painter (see channel) and have recently started looking into painting on t-shirts. All the textile paints I've seen in my country are EXTREMELY expensive, both for painting and for tie-dye. Is this sort of process OK to use on t-shirts, with results that will stand up to washing? I mean can I use a food dye solution on a pre-soaked t-shirt, then heat set by say, ironing or microwave? And do I soak with soda ash or vinegar? Is this lasting tie-dye?

[@tiffanyhope3620]

Doesn't bleed or lose its color after you wash it? Like if you made a garment out of it & washed it?

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

Food coloring is permanent! It isn't as lightfast as most commercial acid dyes, so you can see fading when something is left in direct sunlight for long periods of time kzbin.info/www/bejne/n6vLgKyoiq9pj9U I've had great luck with the washfastness and don't see fading from washing. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZfXpICOo9-lq8k My favorite winter hat was dyed with food coloring and it is just as vibrant on the outside as it is on the inside.

[@anita62d15]

Oh and i forgot to ask...what is the brown stuff you added to the dye? Could you tell me pls?

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

It was just brown food coloring that I diluted with water. It was Wilton's brand, not sure of the exact color name. (I used to do this because it was easier to add some small amounts of the paste colors.)

[@stimpy7ruth]

does the dye stay in the yarn ? after a few washings?

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

it does! I haven't noticed any fading from washing.

[@stimpy7ruth]

awesome thanks i love your videos .. i think you created a yarn dying monster ,, lol . i love it. good info for sure

[@mirandavikanderson6958]

Where did u add the vinegar. To the water in soaking or to the dye

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

I presoaked the yarn in 6 cups water + 2 Tbsp white vinegar.

[@FabricFolk]

Hiya, If you don't have a microwave can you steam it for half an hour instead? Thanks

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

Robin Sparkles Yes! that would work great

[@desireebarhorst-weller1767]

I don't know if this is a stupid question: but doesn't the plastic melt when put in the microwave?

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

This isn't a stupid question! Most kitchen plastic wraps are microwave safe, and so they might cling to each other a bit more, it does not melt into the fibers or anything like that. (It doesn't behave like shrink wrap would when applied with heat.)

[@desireebarhorst-weller1767]

Thanks! I think I will give this a try. I think I will get myself a kit (yarn paint, yarn, etc.) for my birthday (which is pretty soon). I love bright neon colors. Any hints or help on that?

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

I just started playing with Jacquard acid dyes here is a starter set that KnitPicks sells: shrsl.com/t1iu I buy almost all of my bare yarns from KnitPicks, too. Most of the videos on my channel involve food coloring. Lately I'm playing a lot with the Wilton liquid drops, Color Right sytem amzn.to/2CNaGJP

[@desireebarhorst-weller1767]

Are those dyes good enough to get really bright neon colors?

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

Oh yes! Well, it depends a bit on the yarns that you use. If you use 100% wool you can get AMAZINGLY vibrant colors with food coloring (and with commercial acid dyes.) These dyes also work on silk, alpaca, nylon... anything protein based. (Nylon has a chemical structure similar to proteins which is why it works.) If you use yarn with a lower wool contents (for example 20% wool/80% acyrlic) you will get more muted colors since acrylic won't absorb any of the color.

[@anita62d15]

Ist it necessary to fix the coloured yarn after washing?

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

I haven't done anything to the yarn after washing. I have a hat I dyed this way and the color has been vibrant for years.

[@anita62d15]

+ChemKnits Tutorials ok that sounds good! Thank you for you reply 👍😉

[@breakmydreams]

Very pretty :-D Have you made anything with it yet?

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

Not yet. I might do a pair of socks eventually, but right now my queue is super long. ;)

[@breakmydreams]

ChemKnits Tutorials socks would be very pretty with this yarn :-D

[@biblichorandozone]

imagine a yarn dying parody of breaking bad called breaking black

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

LOL!

[@Dragon34th]

Not convinced - her chemistry needs serious revision. Couple of more wash & that skein is as white as a coward's peace flag :) the skein turn out paler than before it was dyed as all the dyes pretty much high tailed it into the drain like as if they have water rush LOL.

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

what kind of yarn did you use? you can't dye 100% acrylic with this method but I've machine washed wool nylon blends (and 20/80 wool/acrylic) that I dyed with out losing color.

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

+Franck Yan Sorry for so many replies, my phone kept saying the comment wouldn't post! Here is the video I made of machine washing some wool/nylon blend that I hand painted with food coloring in the microwave: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZfXpICOo9-lq8k Dyeing this yarn: www.chemknits.com/2012/06/iris-dyed.html

[@sueyoung411]

Would love to watch the whole video but your jumpy camera work is giving me motion sickness. In the future figure out the best way to stabilize your camera.

[@ChemKnitsTutorials]

Thank you for the feedback, Sue! This video is over 10 years old now and I have a much better camera that I use for my filming now.