Dyeing To Meet You.

The jig was nearly up! Last night, I'd assumed man-beast (N) was off doing his own thing, when lo and behold I hear music and a car pulling up at my window.  It was, indeed, the man-beast here as a surprise!
I love when he comes over, and I'm always excited for the surprise.  This time, however, I was in the middle of weaving the ends on his birthday present! Luckily, I got it all packed away from the time I said hello to him at the window, and the time he got into the apartment.

I mentioned Soak Wash doing a photo challenge in my last post.  One of the pictures was to be of dyeing!  Now, I've promised to upload my photos at the end of the month - and I still plan to, however I'd like to post some of the dyeing process!

This is going to be somewhat of an experiment for me, as I'm not using the usual dye... but hair dye!
I started off with blank yarn:

 

I then boiled some water and added a custom mixture of hair dye, stirring well.  I've dyed a few skeins in the past, and found this to be a simple process to dye - without having to boil the yarn in a pot all day.

Once I had the colour and water the way I wanted, I added in the yarn.

I only use these jugs for dyeing, so there's no danger of cross contamination.

From past experiences, I've noticed the longer you leave them, agitating occasionally, the stronger the yarn colour will be - and the lighter the water gets!

Starting out with very bright water and white yarn, slowly the yarn absorbs the colour:

 It may be a little hard to see, but the yarn is soaking up the dye nicely.  I had no idea if this method would actually work or not, but I'm pleasantly surprised to find it seems to work equally as well as other methods I've used.

Last Year I dyed up some Halloween yarn as part of a prize for a challenge on Ravelry. I'd hoped for it to end up being a self striping skein, but the prize winner hasn't knit with it yet (I know one of them personally) so I'm not quite sure how it turned out.

This one should turn out regardless, since it's all going to be one colour.  I have another 4 skeins of bare yarn (sadly only 50g balls, which is 239 yards), so I may make a set of self striping yarn with koolaid next.  I plan to (eventually) have my own custom dyed yarns, and maybe a monthly yarn club, but it will be a while before I end up with the start up.  I need a good set of yarn base, and a reliable dye system; I'll have to look into my options! 

I'll update with the results of my latest dye excursion once the skeins are finished soaking up the colour and dried.