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Handpainting Yarns—How To

Why handpaint yarns when yarn shops are flush with luscious colors?—to get the exact colors we want, the color combinations no one else is making, the colors we have to have to create something unique.

The act of handpainting yarn isn't mysterious, though the results often are. Simply apply concentrated dye solution to wool in a way that pleases you and set the dye so it won't wash out. The tools are basic too—squeeze bottles; an old microwave oven and microwave safe containers; a washtub.

Here's what you'll need:

Wool yarn—other animal protein fibers, silk, and nylon will dye with the same dyes recommended for wool. I use natural white and natural grey yarns.

Dyes—I use washfast acid dye powders; most colors can be mixed from red, yellow, and blue plus brown and black, and there are wonderful colors premixed on the market. It only takes a little dabbling to create colors you'll swear are your own.

*Squeeze bottles—I use 1 1/3 cup capacity ketchup bottles

*The biggest bowl with lid that will fit in your microwave; a tiny bowl to fit inside the big bowl leaving plenty of room for the yarn.

*Washtub

Gloves and simple breathing mask—we're protein and these dyes will dye us too.

*Use these items for dyeing only

Procedure for dyeing 1 pound of yarn:

1. Skein the yarn in 4 ounce skeins. Tie loosely in 3 places; tight ties work as resists.

2. Wet yarn in tub with hot water to which a squirt of dishwashing liquid has been added. Remove excess water—I use the washing machine spin cycle. Be mindful of what you're doing here: dyes will travel father along the skein the wetter the skein is. The colors tend to over-blend to blah/dingy on sopping wet skeins whereas there's less mixing of colors and more splotching through of the original color on dryish skeins.

3. Arrange damp skein in tub.

4. Mix up 5 squeeze bottles of dye solution:

Pastels—use 1/4 tsp dye powder plus 1 tsp citric acid crystals (or use the acid and dye ratios recommended in the instructions that came with your dye)

Medium saturation—1/2 tsp dye powder plus 1 tsp citric acid crystals

Rich colors—heaping 1/2 tsp dye powder plus 1 tsp citric acid crystals

Stirring thoroughly, fill the squeeze bottle up with 1 1/3 cups hot water

5. Select a color and carefully squirt it on the skein in the tub, using 1/4 of the solution in the bottle. Try not to paint on so much dye solution that it pools in the tub as this will have the muddying effect mention above. Repeat with another color or two. Turn the skein over and paint with 1/4 bottle each of the remaining colors.

6. To set the dye, put the painted skein in the bowl; depending on how big your bowl is, you can paint more skeins and add them to the bowl but avoid crowding. Fill the tiny bowl with water to keep the yarn from getting too dry, and place in the middle of the larger bowl. Put the lid on and microwave on high for 6 minutes. Carefully (the contents of the bowl get very hot; I've burned myself on the water in the little bowl) remove the lid and turn the skeins over. Put the lid on again and microwave on high for 6 more minutes. Cool the freshly painted yarn slowly—this helps set the dyes. Rinse with cool water until the water runs clear.

That's as easy as it gets. Read on for hints on how to use handpainted yarns, and for 2 more simple painting techniques.

Notes about using handpainted yarn—things to think about before painting:

I knit up all my handpainted yarn with a contrasting novelty yarn made out of handpainted yarn respun with another handpainted yarn—so much color, so much texture. If you don't spin yourself, ask your spinning friend to respin a little of your handpainted yarn into novelty yarn for you. You don't need much; less than 50 yards will put a terrific spin on a hat. To set off the texture and color I use a quieter yarn for background.

Yarns handpainted in tubs in a random pattern will knit up with very little color streaking producing excellent visual blending of the colors. If you want stripes, arrange the wetted skein over a box wrapped with plastic and paint dye solution on in stripes going all the way around. The stripes can be any width, with or without repetitions of colors. Stripy yarns are effective knitted as part of intarsia patterns. Long stripes can be had by painting the long way around the box.

I sometimes pre-dye a yarn with dye squirted into the large bowl to barely cover the skein, microwave for 6 minutes then handpaint as described above. And finally, it's possible to tame colors by top-dyeing over colors that seem reluctant to join together.

A Walk with my Weft Along the Old Warp Road

Weaving a length of cloth is a journey in many ways. Weft shots crisscross one by one long warp threads that stretch from here to ancient times. It's a straight road, and narrow, set by the limits of my loom but the straight and narrow belie the journey.

Every other weaver who went before me is here with me today. Through each one I know on a cellular level the rigid heddle loom, the backstrap loom, the Navaho tapestry loom—I know all the original equipment. I know all the fibers from thistle down through yak to silk through many unseen hands; I feel them, I weave and become part of all their journeys.

The cloth that forms in my hands now is a journey through colors and textures, through broken warp threads, through designs that work and through designs that fail. Each weft shot binds down the previous weft shot, capturing forevermore the taut, straight warp-thread road. With each weft shot I march nearer the end of my journey.

Cutting the cloth off the loom ends for a time the loom's journey, leaving the golden, enduring, 60 year old frame looking spent as a runner at the end of the race, the front apron dangling to the floor, the severed warp threads still knotted on, all the orderly, purposeful intention given up until the next warp is wound on, the next road laid out and the joinery began again.

Weaving a length of cloth is a journey through days, through nights. I throw shot after shot of deep charcoal wool blended with jet black alpaca, weaving through black-washed winter night skies spangled with perfectly clear, glittering stars. I weave through misunderstood emails that piss my daughter off and it's 3 days (through all 84 inches of the gold and white and mauve and tea-green cloth) to back off wording that certainly had seemed innocuous but clearly wasn't. The dog was lamed the days I wove the cloth that changed texture every inch or two. Throw a shot of lumpy bumpy yarn (the pain pills cost 40 bucks! I wonder if Canada has cheaper doggie drugs?) Change yarns and weave an inch of pale, smooth blue (this dog is used to walking a mile a day and the vet says outside only to pee?) And some-lucky-one will get the dark red jacket that I wove on bread-making and fresh-soup-for-supper day.

My weaving journey is to make a living. My outlets are varied: two art galleries, an occasional benefit, many fiber festivals, and several summer and fall art fairs. It's under the hot summer sun and my white artist canopy that many times I'm there to hear what people have to say about the jackets that I make out of the the cloth that I've woven. I'm lucky most of the comments I hear express appreciation for all the work, for the colors, the textures, for the design, the craftsmanship. Naturally I hear a few comments expressing shock over the price tag. If the day is hot enough and the fair feels too many hours too long, my little inner voice ratchets up the volume and while I cluck softly to the customer something reasonable about this unique jacket coming raw and smelly straight from the sheep's back, I want really to shout something strident about all the life on display here. So much life!

Finally there's the journey my jackets take in conjunction with the journey of my customers. These I mainly lose track of but after years of doing the same art shows, the same fiber festivals, an occasional story circles around. There's the one about two friends who bought two jackets together. One jacket was returned because it had been an unaffordable impulse buy.

And one friend was lost.

We commiserated at length about the loss of the friend; eventually I got around to ask, "What about her jacket?" hoping her friend had received it.

That perfect ending wasn't to be. The friend's daughter had received it.

"And she doesn't appreciate it."

"Oh dear," I sympathized, feeling a little of my life was lost too.

One more story with a better ending, this one involving a gift jacket exchanged for one that fit better.

Over hot chocolate in the little pastry shop in Cross Village, my customer confided, "I appreciate my husband in so many ways, but this jacket is the first gift I've really loved from him."

Of course this comment, this sliver of someone else's journey, comes back to me each time I wind a new warp onto the loom, pick up the shuttle, and begin the old journey anew.