Dyed by Coffee: A Tutorial

Even though I had never dyed any yarn ever, I was excited when Knit Picks offered bare yarn. I grabbed a few skeins of merino wool and just waited.  I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

And then I thought....coffee.

I looked around online and found some tea dyeing tutorials and just decided to 1) not waste tea as I love tea more than coffee and 2) just do it already.

So here we go with coffee dyeing:

Grab your bare yarn and marvel at how pretty and bare it is and hope you don't ruin it

I filled my sink with lukewarm water and put the yarn in. There were a lot of air bubbles so I kept pressing gently on it until they were gone. Then I just let the yarn soak until I was ready for it.

 I had bought generic coffee from the store. I made about 2 full pots of it.

I put those pots of coffee in my big ol stock pot on the stove and turned the heat on. My plan was to get the coffee boiling and then remove from the heat and add the yarn. Once the yarn was added, I stirred it a bit but mostly let it soak for a little over 30 minutes.

I checked it occasionally and, knowing it would lighten up as it dried, waited until it looked like what I wanted.

Once I got that color, I removed the yarn and ran cold water over it until the water ran clear. Then I used a towel to roll it up and blot it dry. From there, all I could do was hang it up and wait for it to dry.

I'm pretty happy with this little experiment!  I made myself some fingerless mitts and will be using the rest for a hat. Next up, Kool aid dyeing!