It's a rainy day here in California. i crochet mainly in thread, and i have found only a limited number of colors for sale. Recently I discovered Sophie Digard, a designer of all things crochet ,she has the most beautiful, expensive scarfs she does in wool and linen yarns in gorgeous natural, subtle colors ! Lots of multi color beautys. I'm reading a description of a $300+ scarf in hand dyed linen thread, and my DUH-meter went off! I have these used tubes of acrylic paint from another hobby that i have used to paint on cotton fabric, and i buy white thread in jumbo size so i set out to dye my own cotton thread in all the subtle colors that Sophie uses. I have these plastic containers from my husbands diabetic test strips, they look like 35mm film cans with snap down lids, that i use to hold small amounts of thread to carry around in my purse for crocheting whenever. glass jar with a screw lid (for the dye water mix ) i use a brush to help dissolve the paint into the water.Also need rubber gloves.
I wrap the plastic container like a spool fastening the end with the cap. i put water to cover the spool in the jar , put a dab of paint in and dissolve it with the brush, put the spool in the jar , put the lid on and shake to saturate the thread with color. Here you need gloves, take the spool out of the jar and hang up the thread on the clothesline in long loops to dry with out getting stuck together. When it's dry, it should be color-fast . check it to be sure, i will be. It may be a while, did i mention it's raining here? DUH ! Anyway, i used yellow ochre,for dk. gold , then added in some raw umber and got a coffee with cream , and added thalo blue and got a dk forest green, there was a little dye water left so i added a lot of water and got a pastel grey-green like one of Sophies hand dyed subtle colors . I cant wait to be able to mix more new colors, and crochet with them, when they dry out. LOL Kitty