Our Colorado family visited us at the end of June. It had been 944 days since we saw them in person. That’s just too long.

Besides going on a hike to Blackwater Falls, visiting Geroge Washington’s headquarters, eating ice cream, having a picnic, painting rocks, celebrating our wedding anniversaries (Daughter and S-I-L 15 years, Mr. Atich and myself 48 years!), and rock painting, we also dyed yarn!

Surprise, surprise!

Using the Crockpot method, we dyed six skeins (100 grams each) of fingering weight yarn in total, the most I’ve ever done at one time. [I did purchase a small microwave (specifically for dyeing/setting the dyes) the morning we dyed but didn’t have time to get it unpacked and ready to use.] For the most part, we used food coloring and Easter egg dyes but I did use some Jacquard dyes in Brillant Blue and Jet Black to add colors. I’m getting low on the Easter egg dyes.

The Karate Kid chose greens and blues.

The Princess chose red and purple. I didn’t add enough white vinegar to the water so as soon as the purple dye hit the wet yarn, it broke into pink and blue. She loved it so we continued.

The Artist wanted reds, oranges, and yellows. The red wasn’t as intense as we thought as a lot of it washed out.

She also used some leftover red and black and a mixture of those for a black cherry hue for this skein.

My daughter used red, blue, and purple with a few spots of lime green.

Lastly, the Karate Kid and I dribbled all of the leftover dyes down the sides of the Crockpot and just let it sit in hot water until all the dye was absorbed.

The final group all in a row.

Each will get at least one pair of socks. That’s a lot of knitting time for me!

I do have a question for any dyers out there: How much dye do you use in what amount of water to make your dye stock? I think I use too much dye and/or too little water as I’m seeing too much color go down the drain while rinsing.