Dyepot Confidential: or how I dye for Light Brown Hare

This is more a demo than a tutorial about how I dye yarn for my hand dye business (a tutorial would take 3x as long as this already overlong video). The shop is http://www.lightbrownhare.etsy.com

The yarns in the video are all superwash and not at risk of felting. I'm using Jacquard acid dyes and citric acid. The method is a variation on low water immersion dyeing. I've simply taken the idea of yarn blocking the dye from traveling in a normal low water process to a logical extreme.

Please note, if you do this be gentle with the yarn and don't wring it or tie it into tight knots. The fiber is more fragile when it's wet and it doesn't matter how pretty it is if it gets damaged in the process.

I steam set the yarn for reasons of speed. The crockpots take a while to heat up sufficiently to set the dye. In order to clear the pots for new colorways I steam completed colorways to make sure they have gotten hot enough to set. I use plastic bags because my steaming pot is contaminated with rust which would affect the color of the yarn. The bags are reused until they pop a hole and then recycled.

If you're using white vinegar instead of citric acid, I find 2c of vinegar sufficient for the same size crockpot.

The gloves are Grease Monkey "Pro cleaning long cuff pvc coated gloves" in the chemical series. They will get hot if held in hot water, but they're still much better than uninsulated gloves.