Dyeing your own acrylic yarn.......and a Giveaway!

Another chance find on Facebook, and as they say........who knew?!

As always, reading one page or link online usually needs to another. Moogly's Facebook crochet knitting page showed a link to Hodge Podge's Facebook crochet page and her blog where she had a post regarding a Youtube video, by The Frugal Crafter, on dyeing your own acrylic yarn!

To get the best idea of how the process works you will need to have a look at the Youtube link, and Hodge Podge's blog, but basically what The Frugal crafter has done is find a way of 'dyeing' pale coloured acrylic yarn using acrylic paint! As Tanya at Hodge Podge says, 'Okay...I'll admit; I was skeptical. But she's SO convincing and charismatic and so gosh darn infectious with her energy that I knew I needed to try it on my own to see if was indeed true! And guess what you guys...IT IS!!'

So, I decided to give it a go myself using some cream-coloured yarn.

With the paints being really strong in colour and totally water-based, this process saves a lot of time and mess whilst also being fairly easy to do. Below, you can see what the initial adding of the watered-down paint looks like.

Then, this is what the yarn looks like after the colour has been 'massaged' in - quite toned down with all of the shades blending from one to another.

I only did this last night so the experiment is still drying but from what I have seen, I must say that the overall effect is excellent!

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Edit - Mon 24 Feb update!
This is how the yarn looks when it is completely dry (the ball of yarn above shows you the original yarn, pre-dyeing). The colours are slightly muted but I love these natural shades even more now.

Also, it is advised that you rinse the yarn again once it has completely dried to remove the slight 'crispiness' left by the acrylic paint. I have done this with a drop of fabric conditioner in the water and am pleased to report hardly any transfer of colour into the water!

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I am considering dyeing a fair bit of acrylic yarn in this way, using the Frugal Crafter's method, with a view to having enough for a blanket-making project. The paint colours will vary, as will the base shade of the pastel coloured acrylic yarn underneath.

In the process I am bound to have plenty to spare, so I will be offering, as a GIVEAWAY, three batches of 100g from what I make, for three recipients to experiment and try it out for themselves to see what they can create.

If you are interested in the chance to get some of this yarn, all you need to do is
1. Follow my blog (join as a member)
and
2. let me know that you want to be included by leaving a 'Yes' in the Comments section of this post, by no later than Sunday 2nd March 2014.

As soon as I have enough yarn ready, all names will go into a hat and three winners will be randomly chosen.

Good luck and thank you for participating!