experimenting

I found out that the local bulk food store carries a large array of cake decorating materials, including many colours of Wilton's icing dye. My past forays into food colouring and kool aid dyeing have been interesting, and I've wanted to try more, so I bought some Wiltons in Golden Yellow for another experiment. I've also wanted to trying hand painting for a while, so I thought I'd give it a go. (#17 on my 101 in 1001 list).

I mixed up some wiltons golden yellow solid as well as with some red food colouring with vinegar and water, painted and poured it on a small amount of inherited handspun and this is what I ended up with.



It's not exactly what I was going for and my first thought was bog people. It's not as intense as I had hoped, since the yarn didn't take up the dye very well with handpainting. I steamed it to set the colour, and ended up pouring more dye over it as it sat in the steamer basket. It's growing on me, though. Maybe marigolds are more pleasant.



Basically, it was fun, but I still hate the smell of vinegar. Star Athena suggests using lemon juice, but I'm skeptical. Has anyone tried this and does it actually work? I will try to track down some straight up citric acid or colourless kool aid at some point anyway. I need to try dyeing with Wiltons in a pot for more intense colour, and try a different method of handpainting at some point.