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Get More Yarn Colors With Iron Modification

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Come see how I used iron modification to get even more colors out of my naturally dyed yarn, with my latest dyeing experiment.

Four skeins of yarn lie side by side on a concrete step. From left to right the colors are gold, yellow, bright purple, and dull purple.

Lately, I have been dipping my toe into the world of natural yarn dyeing. There is an endless amount of things to learn and try!

I started with harvesting dye materials from my own backyard and managed to dye a bright marigold yellow, and an earthy blackberry purple.

But even after you’ve dyed your yarn, there is more you can do! Let me show you how I used iron to get more colors out of my natural dyes.

How To Get Iron For Dyeing

This is when you might want to make sure you’re current on your tetanus shots.

A glass jar filled with water and a layer of rusty nails at the bottom sits on a wood table.

A simple way to get an iron solution is to get a jar of rusty metal, fill it with water, and let it sit for a week or so. I used a bunch of rusty nails that were in my garage, so my iron jar looks particularly menacing. If you try this, be very careful to not hurt yourself!

With this method, there is no way to know exactly how much iron is actually in my iron solution, so I have to rely on trial and error when using it.

Modifying Natural Dyes with Iron

I let my strange jar of rusty nails sit in my kitchen for about a week. The rust built up at the bottom of the jar, so I knew something was happening. Once I had a good amount of debris in my jar, I knew it was ready to go.

Iron modification can be done simultaneously with or immediately after dyeing. Or, if you are like me and it takes you weeks to decide what you want to do with your yarn, you can still modify it after it has been dyed and dried.

I pulled out a skein each of my marigold dyed yarn and my blackberry dyed yarn to modify with iron. This way, I could compare the differences between each dye with and without iron.

Getting the Yarn Ready

Since it was a while after I had dyed my yarn, the first thing I needed to do (after letting my nail jar sit for a week) was to make sure my yarn was fully saturated with water. This ensures that the iron soaks into the yarn evenly and gives an even color change.

A bowl of water with a yellow skein of yarn and a purple skein of yarn.

Wool does not get wet quickly. It can take a couple of hours for it to be soaked all the way through. Luckily, once you put your yarn in the water, you can ignore it until it’s fully saturated.

While my yarn was soaking, I added my iron solution to one of my dyepots.

I had no idea how much iron solution to use, so I started with just a couple of tablespoons worth of iron solution and added enough water to make sure my yarn would be fully submerged.

Modifying Yarn Dyes with Iron

Marigold Yarn

Because I was using the same iron bath for the purple and yellow yarn, I didn’t want to have residual dye changing the yarn colors. I decided to start with my yellow marigold dyed yarn first, since it was a much lighter dye. Once my marigold yarn was done soaking, I squeezed out as much excess water as I could. Then I gently lowered it into the dyepot with iron in it. Nothing happened, so I started to gently warm it up on a low heat.

A stainless steel pot with iron water and yellow yarn.

As the temperature of the water increased, there still wasn’t anything happening, so I added more of the iron solution.

I ended up adding almost all of the iron solution I had before I started to see a difference. In hindsight, it might have been better to mix up the particles in the jar before pouring off the water. I wasn’t sure how strong of a reaction I would get, so I started small.

A stainless steel pot with murky brown iron water and yellow yarn. The water is gently steaming.

The more iron solution I added to my dyepot, the murkier the water got. This made it difficult to tell how much the color of the yarn had actually changed and how much it just looked different because the water was a bit brown.

After letting the marigold yarn simmer for about twenty minutes, I pulled it out of the dyepot and put it into some warm water to help rinse it off. I used warm water so I didn’t shock my yarn from going to another temperature suddenly.

Blackberry Yarn

I immediately followed the marigold yarn with a skein of the blackberry yarn into the iron bath. I noticed a color change fairly quickly when I added this yarn to the iron, but I still let it gently simmer for about twenty minutes before adding it to the rinse water.

A stainless steel pot with murky brown iron water and purple yarn. The water is gently steaming.

With both skeins of yarn out of the iron bath and into some plain water, I let them sit until they were cool enough to handle. Then, I rinsed them out and hung them to dry.

At this point, I was feeling a bit discouraged. It seemed like they hadn’t changed color at all! But after they were dry I set them side by side with the unmodified skeins of yarn and it was clear this experiment had worked!

Four skeins of yarn. Upper left yarn is bright purple and labeled "blackberry," Upper right yarn is yellow and labeled "marigold," lower left yarn is a dull purple and labeled "blackberry and iron," and bottom right yarn is a golden yellow labeled "marigold and iron."

The iron dulled the color into something new on both skeins of yarn. In the dyeing world, this is referred to as “saddening” the color. The difference between the two skeins of blackberry dyed yarn is more noticeable than the marigold skeins, but it definitely changed them both.

What I Learned

Since this was my first time using an iron modifier for my yarn, I learned a lot. The biggest surprise was how much iron I had to add to see any effect. The next time I try this method, I will use all of my iron solution. Especially since it is easy to make more, just add more water!

I also learned to wait until the yarn is dry to really see the difference. It was very useful to have the side by side comparison of the skeins with and without iron to really see the impact the iron makes.

One of the most exciting things for me about natural dyeing is how one dye material can produce a range of colors. It all depends on the variables you use before, during and after dyeing. The amount of things you can try are endless!

If you want to learn more about natural dyeing, I highly recommend the book Wild Color: The Complete Guide to Making and Using Natural Dyes by Jenny Dean.

I hope you give natural dyeing a try and see what colors you can create!

Four skeins of yarn draped over an iron handrail.

If you want to see more yarn experiments, click here.

Which yarn color do you like the best, let me know in the comments below!

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