First Dye Samples

Yesterday I started dyeing the samples. Here is a picture of my setup. Note that the coffee pot is a very important element in the setup.........

I use small canning jars to dye my samples in. The individual sample skeins are on a half a gram each. This translates to 5.5 yards of 20/2 silk, that is, if my arithmetic is correct. I make no guarantees for my arithmetic..........

I put the canning jars into a water bath. In this case, two electric skillets hold the water baths. I use hot water and regulate the temperature of the water as I dye. Basically it means taking an hour to get the water bath slowly up to about 185 degrees, and then holding it there for another hour.

The pink towel, by the way, is there because I had just filled the white skillet with hot water to the point of overflowing............

The two stick things you see sticking up from the skillets are thermometers. I don't put the thermometer in the water bath itself but in one of the canning jars. It is the temperature of the water in the canning jars that matters, not the temperature of the water in the skillet.

For me, this is a very efficient setup. One skillet will hold 8 canning jars, the other one 7, so I can dye 15 colors at a time. Until the water gets too hot, I keep a plastic spoon in each jar for stirring. It's constant stirring for the first 20 minutes. After that 20 minutes I start raising the temperature of the water but the stirring then needs to be only occasional. And after awhile the yarns have absorbed so much dye that I can use just one spoon to stir each of the jars.