How do you get into dyeing for making yarn? I've started spinning just some time last year, and debating if I should get into dyeing too
Based on my early experiences with acid dyes, it's kind of a hefty hobby to add on top of spinning. I really love it a lot and I recommend it if you can get the equipment and space, but it's not as straightforward as I thought it would be.
If you use acid dyes (which I use) then you need:
A respirator (an n95 mask is not sufficient) to handle the powdered dye before you mix it into water
Gloves for every step of the process (I use rubber dishwashing gloves)
Pots and mixing containers only for dye (they will become permanently food unsafe)
Tongs and spoons to manipulate the wool when the water gets hot
A gram scale if you want to achieve consistency with color recipes
Measuring cups that use milliliters
Cylinder measuring syringes to accurately measure small amounts of dye stock for color recipe mixing
A heat source (stovetop, crock pot)
Either a comb, hackle, or carders to prepare the wool after, because the dyeing process will compress the wool too much to spin it (or I guess you can spin the yarn first and dye it after!)
Plus, space to store all that stuff away from all food sources so people don't accidentally use it.
I also had to get small rubber tubs that I could use to hand rinse the wool.
The process for using acid dye is pretty simple. You dissolve the dye powder into water, soak wool into the pigmented water, very slowly heat it up to below boiling, and add an acid like white vinegar or citric acid, which is necessary for the dye to bond with the fiber (that's why they're called acid dyes). As the dye binds to the fiber, the water will begin to run clear. Then you let the water slowly cool in order to avoid felting, and remove the wool, rinse it, and let it dry.
Within that you can do a ton of options, like using large syringes to deposit color onto certain areas, sprinkling dye powder onto wool to achieve speckling, or introducing the acid at different times to impact how the dye bonds to the fiber.
The only thing I would do differently is get a set of primary colors right away, which you can use to mix a huge variety of your own color recipes. Jacquard sells a little set of 4 colors which I wish I would have started with and then expanded as I ran out of colors or wanted more premix options. I have all these Jacquard colors now to mix on my own, but I do feel I wasted money on some premixed colors because now I pretty much just use the primaries.
I'm also running into new problems now, like, if I want 300 grams of dyed wool for a sweater to all come out in the same dye lot, I need a bigger stainless steel pot. And that's pricey too.
I love the dyeing process so much and I'm glad I got into it, but I definitely wasn't prepared to have to go out and drop $30 more each time I got into a dyeing session because there was yet one more thing I needed that I didn't have on hand. Hopefully now I have everything, though.
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