When hand-painting the yarn with a brush or applying speckles, we work with just a little water and a lot of acid. This ensures that the colour is fixed straight away and avoids it spreading unintentionally.

For these techniques, already add 2 tablespoons of citric acid to the soaking water and allow it to dissolve.

Method:

• Fill a baking dish or pot with a small amount of water, dissolve 2 tablespoons of citric acid in it.
• Lay the hank(s) in it. Adjust the amount of water as necessary, so that the yarn is about half-covered.
• Heat to boiling point.
• Using a brush, paint the yarn with dye stock.
• For speckles, put some dye powder on a spoon (less is more). Hold a tea strainer over the yarn and dust the yarn lightly with powder by tapping the sieve. Keep moving the sieve and spoon constantly to avoid a build-up of colour.
• When you are happy with the result, cover the pot/baking dish and leave to simmer for about 10 minutes, or put in the oven at 100°C for 10 minutes.
• Turn the hanks and apply colour to the other side.
• Allow the colour to fix again for 20-30 minutes.
• Leave the contents to cool to room temperature.
• Rinse the yarn in lukewarm water, possibly wash with a little woolwash, then lay flat or hang up to dry.

Further posts on the subject of dyeing:

• Dyeing yarn with acid dyes – the basics
• Dyeing with acid dyes – immersion dyeing
• Working with hand-dyed yarns

You can find more information about our RAW yarns here.