I've been wanting to do this for ever so long, so at long last, when we had a week off from school, I decided to take the plunge.  I purchased some left over Easter egg dye after Easter for .10 a box, so I dragged those out, along with the rest of my supplies as listed below...

• Easter Egg dye
• Undyed yarn (or fiber)
• Condiment bottles
• Crock Pot dedicated to fiber only
• plenty of newspaper
• vinegar and vinegar spray bottle
• candy thermometer
• pH paper and color check
• plastic mixing spoon

The first step on the path to dyed yarn was to soak the yarn thoroughly...

I let this yarn soak for a little over an hour in a tepid water bath.

While the yarn was soaking, I got the dyes ready...

I usually dye eggs with Paas, but this is what was offered for .10 at Wal-Mart, so this is what I got...

I mixed the dyes according to the directions on the box (2 tablets per bottle) in the condiment bottles.  This box had five different colors.

After I mixed the dyes, I mixed up the vinegar water.  I used about 1 gallon of water to I'm guessing approximately 4 teaspoons of vinegar to get to a pH of 4 (slightly acidic).

After I got the yarn put in the crock pot, I gently poured the vinegar water over it, and then turned the pot onto high.  I needed to wait quite a while for it to get up to 190 degrees, but at last we got there...

The temp was still climbing here!

Once everything got heated up, I took the squeeze bottles, and carefully applied the dye, started with the lighter colors, and progressing to the darker colors.  Once the dye was taken up into the fiber, I turned the pot off to cool overnight.  The water turned clear when the dye was all absorbed.

The next day...

I rinsed the dyed yarn by banking it so that the water kind of damed up on one side and slowly ran over the dyed yarn.  I kept pressing to remove any residual dye, and then added a couple of drops of Dawn, and continued to press it until the water ran clear.  Then I squeezed the yarn, and hung it up to dry...

like this!!!

I'll update the blog once it's all dry, and I've started knitting with it.  This yarn will eventually turn into socks.  All in all, I had a great time working with it, and I look forward to doing a better job the next time around.