I need help dying a knitted garmet

[MzMolly]

So .. as usual I found a yarn I love and couldn't help but buy some (which is why I have stacks and stacks of yarn like most yarns addicts). The store only had 7 balls so I bought all they had with no pattern in mind. As it went, I started making a small sweater and thinking I would have enough yarn but noooooo.

No problem. I jump on the internet and find some for sale. I purchase enough to finish the sweater and a little extra but when it arrived the dye lots are several obvious shades different. Since I hate the thought of tearing out all this work, I think the only way to deal with this problem is to finish the sweater and then dye it.

Does anyone have any experience dying a finished, knitted garment? I'm looking for suggestions on how to, and best dye to use. It's a light green and I suspect I'll have to take it right to black to hide the difference in the two greens. I've dyed clothing before and while it turns out nice the dye usually runs in the laundry ruining other clothes and the garment fades quickly. I'm hoping to avoid this with some advice from others.

[Shandeh]

So .. as usual I found a yarn I love and couldn't help but buy some (which is why I have stacks and stacks of yarn like most yarns addicts). The store only had 7 balls so I bought all they had with no pattern in mind. As it went, I started making a small sweater and thinking I would have enough yarn but noooooo.

No problem. I jump on the internet and find some for sale. I purchase enough to finish the sweater and a little extra but when it arrived the dye lots are several obvious shades different. Since I hate the thought of tearing out all this work, I think the only way to deal with this problem is to finish the sweater and then dye it.

Does anyone have any experience dying a finished, knitted garment? I'm looking for suggestions on how to, and best dye to use. It's a light green and I suspect I'll have to take it right to black to hide the difference in the two greens. I've dyed clothing before and while it turns out nice the dye usually runs in the laundry ruining other clothes and the garment fades quickly. I'm hoping to avoid this with some advice from others.

Dyeing yarn is quite a task in itself, and it depends on the yarn as to what you can use to dye it.

If it is a protein fiber (wool, silk, alpaca, yak, llama, mohair, etc.), you will be able to dye it easily. You can even use Kool-Aid for dyeing protein yarns.

But, if it's acrylic or cotton, you'll have to invest quite a bit of time researching the best way to dye it.

Good luck!

[MzMolly]

FWIW .. the dye doesn't take. I've tried several different products and nothing holds. The yarn always returns to it's original colour and most likely because it's an acrylic.

It looks like I have a lovely sweater to wear around the house

The whole thing was disappointing. Colour turned out all wrong, sweater is too big (even though I spent hours fussing with gauge squares) and it doesn't look nice at all ... just one of those projects I'm really not happy with.

An expensive waste of effort. Maybe I'll end up re-purposing the yarn into something else.

[Shandeh]

I'm sorry the dye didn't work.
But the good thing is that you learned a lot about what WON'T work.

You sweater might be stretched out because of the weight of the garment. I've had that happen before.