I have a confession to make. I’ve been dyeing yarn now for several years and have always skipped the step of first scouring the yarn. The yarn has always looked clean when pulling it out of the package. This summer I took a workshop which involved first dyeing the yarn to be used in the project. I had the opportunity to see yarn dyed with and without first scouring. Wow! what a difference. From that point forward I pledged to scour my yarn before dyeing.
For this project I will be dyeing Monte Cristo cotton yarn to be used in a baby blanket. I’m going to need to dye the yarn in Barn Red and then a few shades of gray. Well, before I pull out my dyes, I’m going to first scour. Here are the steps.
Step 1: Wind Your Yarn Into Skeins
I use a skein winder to wind skeins, but a niddy noddy would work just as well. I have my handles set at the furthest setting on each arm. One round is approximately 2 yards. This is how I keep track of how much yarn I have to dye for each color in the project.
After winding you’ll need to place ties on the skein to keep the yarn in order during the process. I make a figure 8 with a piece of yarn. Be sure to keep the tie loose. If it’s tied too tight you will have a resist in the yarn where the tie was placed.
Step 2: Weigh Your Skiens
This is a step is one I often forget and then have to give it a good guess. Weighing your skeins while they are dry is needed for measuring your dye, salt and soda ash.
Step 3: Wet Your Yarn
When dyeing, I really like to have my yarn very saturated. This is so that I can ensure the dye is applied evenly throughout the skein. So before scouring on the stove, I like to put my yarn in the sink full of warm water and let it sit for an hour or so. During this time, I rotate the yarn and swish it around a bit periodically to be sure all the yarn has a chance to be fully exposed to the water. I find this step is particularly important when dyeing mercerized cotton and even the Monte Cristo I’ll be dyeing today.
Step 4: Make Your Pot
For each pound of yarn, I will be adding 2 teaspoons of Synthrapol (you can use dish soap) and 1 1/2 teaspoons of Soda Ash to a pot of water. The pot needs to contain enough water so that the yarn moves freely.
The pot is placed on the stove and brought to a slow simmer (do not boil). Continue simmering from between 30 minutes to an hour.
Step 5: Let It Cool
You can either let the yarn cool in the pot or move the yarn to a separate container to let it cool down.
Step 6: Rinse
Simply rinse the yarn to ensure the soap is removed.
Well, there you have it. Your yarn is now super clean and ready to fully accept the dye. You can either dry your yarn before dyeing or keep it saturated. I’m off to the dye studio now and hopefully will get some wonderfully dyed Barn Red yarn!
