Playing with Easter Egg Tablet Yarn Dyeing

I haven't been doing much dyeing lately with my hand still healing, but I'm ready now to try out Easter Egg tablet dyeing and see what I come up with!  

Now is the time to buy Eater egg tablet kits.  You won't need the one's with all the extra stuff...glitter, nah, stickers, well you can play with those, shrink wraps for eggs, whatever.  The tablet colors, THAT is what you want to look for.  On the back of the Paas Easter Dyeing kits, you will see the colors contained in the box.  I picked up 1 marble kit and 2 regular kits to try out.  I don't know that marble will work on yarn, but worth experimenting to see if it does work.

Materials:
Easter Egg Dyeing kit
Vinegar
Old jars
Plastic spoons
Plastic wrap
Gloves
Microwavable container
Sponge brushes
Old towel
Apron
Yarn

I spent yesterday making my mini-skeins.  My skeins are about 12 yards each (perfect for making hexipuffs!).  I made up about 11 or so mini-skeins before I got bored.  :)  

I put the mini skeins in water and a couple of glugs of vinegar to soak for an hour or so before dyeing time.  

I prepared the tablets by dropping one tablet in each jar, along with 3 TBS of vinegar as indicated on the Paas box.  Orange, Blue, Denim, Green, Red, and Yellow.

Started off by placing some UP & UP clear plastic wrap from Target (read on to find out why I DO NOT recommend using this plastic wrap in the future!) on the table (over my drop cloth, I always use a drop cloth when dyeing on my table).  Here you see my mini skein all ready to be dyed.

Here's a couple of pics showing my hand dyed yarn using the Easter egg dye.  I just used my sponge brush and painted on the colors.  Top is a combination of blue, denim, red, orange (overlapping the denim/blue and red/orange)

Wrapped each one up separately, and put them in my microwavable dish.  Microwaved on high for 2 minutes and let rest for two minutes.  Did this twice, which I found out to be too high of a temp for mini-skeins.  Doing 30 seconds on, a couple of minutes off, is actually much better.

Sad to say, I lost this mini-skein to the plastic wrap melting into the yarn!  :(  Yes, the heat was probably too high, and this is the first time using Target's Up & Up brand, which I will not be using again.  I switched to Glad Cling Wrap (again, not a favorite of mine, but in 30 second heatings, it isn't melting yet).  This would have been so pretty if it hadn't melted.

Will not use this again!

The Easter egg tablets make very bright colors.  I decided to take some and dunk them into different colors and see how that turns out.  They are drying right now, so will post pics of them later.  Also got out some of my Wilton's to try out since I have a few new colors...Kelly green and brown.  Wanted to see how they look, and testing mini skeins is the perfect way to experiment!

I also had one hexipuff already knitted up (except for stuffing and closing) to dye.  I'm not sure how it is going to turn out.  Was trying to go for a marbled look, but, well, hoping it comes out decent.  :)

Ugg, the Glad Cling wrap is gumming up as I microwave it too, even on short bursts of 20 seconds, and resting for 3 minutes!  :P  I really need to go back to the plastic wrap I use to use for dyeing in the microwave.  It worked so well compared to these other brands.

Here's a pic of the two Wilton's colors I'm trying out.  Brown on left and Kelly Green on right.

Here are some of my mini-skeins drying on the rack.  Easter tablet dyes on left, brown and green Wilton's on right.

Will post pictures of everything when they are dry!