Tablet Dyeing

Ok, here we go!

Last Easter, when everything was on sale, I grabbed about 5 boxes of tablet egg dye. I had some preliminary dyeing on my Cotswald and liked the results, for the most part.

So a few weeks ago, I was thinking about how to create an original and unique color way and my stash of dye tablets popped into my head.

Here was the idea: Ball or cake the yarn and slip tablets into it along the way. Heat up just water and vinegar and hope it soaked all the way through. Wait to see what would happen.

Questions: Would the vinegar soak all the way into the ball? Would there be giant white spots inside, on the left, right, etc.? Would the dye reach the outside of the ball and dye all the yarn? Would there just be too much dye leaving you with a strange combination and not sections of colors?  How long would these sections be?  How long would I have to leave it in the bath? Would I end up with a felted ball?

I had no idea.

Here's what I did:

I gathered all my supplies: my pot, my dye (I used 2 tables of each color I wanted to use), my yarn (some unknown yardage of Bella singles), and some vinegar.

I balled up the yarn slipping tablets in along the way.

I heated up my water and vinegar and slipped in the ball.

I let it roll around in there for quite a while. I think I had heat on it for about 40 minutes to an hour and then let it sit with the lid on for another three hours while my daughter and I went to visit a friend. Then I pulled the ball out of a sea of blue and put it in a small bowl to finish cooling (yes it was still a bit warm, but really I just didn't want blue fingers), and then let the ball sit overnight in cool water. I woke up to a lighter sea of blue in my fiber bowl, drained that, rinsed the ball again, drained, unwound the  ball and rinsed the yarn. I just let it sit, no squishing or squeezing since the yarn wasn't organized in any way and I didn't want a tangled mess.

 A few more rinses, then onto the Niddy Noddy for skeining and drying.

Answers:
Would the vinegar soak all the way into the ball? 
Yes. I was concerned I would have bits of my tablets still in the ball as I unwound it, but I didn't.

Would there be giant white spots inside, on the left, right, etc.? 
Sort of. There were white spots, but not huge ones. I did use way too much dye, that may have played a factor, or it could have just been that the tablets were inside, more experiments will be needed to find a conclusive result.

Would the dye reach the outside of the ball and dye all the yarn? 
Yes. It was so fun to watch as the vinegar soaked in to the top few tablets and I could see the bubbles coming out. The sea of blue was conclusive with regards to the dye reaching the outside though.

Would there just be too much dye leaving you with a strange combination and not sections of colors?
Sort of. I did get a nice mix on the outside and first few layers of the ball (this is one technique where color theory plays a bit role), but on the inside I did get good sections of color.

  How long would these sections be? 
Varied. Of course the outer sections of the combined color were longer, but once inside the ball, the sections got quite small. It would be interesting to see how the section length would vary with a larger ball, a cake, and more deliberate tablet placement.
 
 How long would I have to leave it in the bath? 
I don't know how long I needed to leave it in the bath, but I left it in there for about 4 hours, and that worked out fine.

Would I end up with a felted ball?
No. This will, of course, change with the heat and type of wool you use, but everything stayed separate this time around.