Yarn dyeing behind the scenes #1

Follow along with our little follow-up tone for the next 3 weeks, where we take you into the dye shop. Here you get an insight into how we dye the yarn and which processes the yarn goes through before it comes to you and is ready to be knitted with.

In the first section, we show how the yarn is prepared for dyeing. Enjoy!

The yarn is made ready

First of all, the yarn must be soaked. We dye with what are called acid dyes, but it is not at all as chemical-like as it sounds. In short, it is a color powder that dissolves in water, and so that it binds to the yarn and is not simply washed out with the water afterwards, the yarn is heated with dissolved citric acid - i.e. the same as you descale your dishwasher. That way, the color stays in the yarn.

We put the yarn in tubs of water so that it is all soaked and ready to receive colour. Yarn dyeing can be quite a watery process and we try to save as much as possible where we can. So we reuse the water the yarn is soaked in, and the tubs are only emptied at the end of the week.

When the yarn has soaked for a few hours or overnight, we gently squeeze out the water and place it in a dish. We distribute the threads of yarn so that they lie as evenly as possible in the dishes, so that they receive the same amount of colour.

Then the yarn is ready! Stay tuned next week, where we'll show the next step in the process: dyeing the yarn.

Good weekend!