Unnatural Domestic Wannabe: New hobby, less time

Have you seen the Knit Picks Chroma yarn? It's beautiful, no? I first discovered this yarn when I found a beautiful pattern, the Owl Obsession blanket. Unfortunately, the colorway that it calls for (and that I loved) was always back ordered. It's actually discontinued now. But I REALLY wanted to make this blanket, so... what to do...

I read a lot of tutorials on how to dye my own yarn! There are so many ways to dye yarn, but I went with a method that involved ingredients I already had in my house: food coloring and vinegar. This method only works on animal protein, so I found some Paton's Aran Wool in "natural" (or something like that, I don't remember exactly).

I turned over a chair, and made a handful of mini skeins so I could play with various colors.

I then soaked the skeins in a vinegar bath. I used 16 cups of water, and 4 cups of vinegar. Bonus: I needed something to weigh the yarn down... and my glasses were getting kind of gross. So, two for one!

For this batch, I was going to use Wilton Gel food dyes. They make a brilliant color for frosting, so, why not yarn?

I then set up a bunch of mason jars to test the various colors. 1 cup water, 1/16 teaspoon of dye, and a scientific "glug" of vinegar.

Nuke for 2 minutes, rest for 2 minutes. Repeat until "water" is clear. (eesh, that took forever..). Also, Brendan made me use a spare microwave out in the garage. He didn't want to risk making the house stink.

Not all of the water turned clear. The Rose had an interesting reaction (because of the type of red it is and the reaction is had with vinegar).

All (mostly) clear! Time to gently rinse and cool down. Now, you can technically save the dye baths (the clear liquid left in the jar) to use for another round, but I didn't this time around.