Dyeing experiment.

So Tish and I wanted to make some variegated yarn but the dye that I bought (it had to be suitable for cellulose yarn as it is banana fibre) only seemed to be suitable to put the whole lot in and dye it one colour. So I decided we could try painting it on and then putting it in the fixative solution afterwards ... and see what happens.
So here is the equipment: dye, salt, washing soda, bucket, jars for mixing, rubber gloves

first we mixed the dye then we dribbled the dyes onto the yarn laid out on some plastic:

then we added it to the hot solution with salt and washing soda:

The yarn soaked for about an hour and the I rinsed until clear and washed out briefly, then spun in the machine to get most of the moisture out. Unfortunately what happened is that the dye leeched out and the yarn basically turned a slightly variegated pinky purple, not quite what we intended but pretty nice nontheless:

It is all currently hanging in the hot cupboard to dry and then we will have the task of trying to roll it into a ball. Note for the future: make sure you tie the hank up in at least six places so it doesn't get too tangled.
Dunk checked on the wonderful interweb and found the advice to leave it to cure for 24 hours, then rinse and then fix the dye. So we may try that tomorrow.