Dying cotton string

I was enjoying working with cotton yarn, but it dost a bomb, and I had some string and some dye...so badda bing badda boom, an idea formed. I could try dying some cotton and crocheting with it, it is definitely worth a try!

I realise that the cotton yarn in the shops is softer than string, but I wanted to crochet baskets for use in the bathroom (for cotton wool balls etc) to give away as Christmas presents. and I don't need a soft yarn for this, in fact, rougher, stiffer and more durable yarn would be more ideal.

First off I unwound the string as I thought the string would dye more evenly this way. But I was then thinking that if you left the string in the ball it would give it a tie-dye effect, going lighter and darker in places. Following the instructions on the dye packet I proceeded to dye my string.

I used dylon hand dye powder, as that was what I had at home. But I think that this would be a disaster with a washing machine dye, and it would be tumbled about too much and just end up in a knot.

Once the cotton is soaked and stirred for long enough, you rinse out all the dye.

Then you let the string dry.
I did two lots of the maximum weight stated on the packet, in the hopes it would give me a darker intense blue the first time around, and a paler light blue the next. Success, this is exactly what happened, two shades of blue, same pack of dye.

I did find it a little annoying to untangle the string at the end, but it wasn't too much bother, I just popped a film on, and sat own with a cup of tea.

I think you could tie the string into bundled lengths, making untangling practically not necessary and winding unto balls loads quicker. But I am not sure if what ever you use to tie the bundles together would stop the dye from getting to the string, like when you tie-dye and the parts under the string/rubber bands don't change colour (much).

All in all I enjoyed this, I did mange to dye the string and have an outcome I was happy with. I ended up with about 800g of blue cotton.

In my local yarn shop, it is around £3 for 100g of cotton yarn (although theirs is softer)
The cost of the whole 800g would be less than £10 pounds, so a huge saving. Luckily for me, I had everything at home in the cupboard awaiting another crafty moment, so I didn't need to go out and spend more money, I had spent it already!

Happy Crafting
xoxo