Dyeing with Gaywool Dyes
Louet's Gaywool dyes are great because the jar contains the acid as well as the dye.
Assemble your materials. Gaywool is a heat-activated dye, so you will need to cook the batch. Today's test was with Azalea dye and my new 18-quart oven roaster. (Yes, this item will be exclusively used for dyeing.)
Soak your skeins in a tub (dishpan, large pot, whatever) of warm water with your preferred liquid soap. I used Orvus as I still have about 7 pounds of it lying around. I let them soak for 1/2 hour, but this is because my yarn was in balls and I had to reskein it. So as I finished a skein, it went into the water tub.
Meanwhile, fill your dye pot with water - "enough to cover all your skeins and let them move freely in the pot" (which is a fairly standard dye instruction). Turn the heat up until the water is boiling. On the oven roaster I used 250 degrees. Then, turn it down to simmer; using the cap from the dye jar, measure out 1 dry level capful for each 100g of yarn or fiber that you are dyeing. A typical skein is 50g, so for every 2 skeins, 1 level capful of dye mixture (dry). Pour it into the dye pot and stir carefully and thoroughly.
Remove each skein from the soapy water and squeeze to remove excess water. Gently add your skeins to the dye bath. Make sure you push them down under the surface; parts that are sticking out may come out undyed. (They may sink to the bottom and take up dye, but they may not.)
Simmer your skeins for 1/2 hour. Louet recommends that you stand over the pot and flip/push the skeins around for the first four minutes because that's when the skeins take up the most dye. I did not do this - as a test - and my skeins look great, no uneven patches at all. I just whomped them in the pot and left it for half an hour.
If the day is nice, it's best to do the next bit outside. If not, you can do it anywhere as long as you don't need to worry about dye drips on the floor. A garage is useful for this! I have also done it in the bathroom so that I can hang the skeins in the tub using a tension-mount shower curtain rod mounted in the middle of the tub. If you hang them over the regular shower curtain rod, make sure to place an old towel underneath them or you may have puddles in the bathroom!
Take the skeins out of the pot one by one. Squeeze them out, drape them over a broomstick suspended between two lawn chairs. Use the garden hose to gently rinse them (from the top down) until the water runs clear. This should be a fairly quick process; most of the dye will have been absorbed into the skeins and not be left in the runoff water. If you are rinsing inside, create a tub full of warm water and lay the skeins gently in it. Squeeze the skeins gently a few times, letting them reabsorb water. When they appear to be rinsing clear, hold them over the tub and squeeze the water out. Check to make sure it really is clear. If not, drain the old water and start over until the skeins have no excess dye on them.
Squeeze each skein out (starting at the pole and going downward). Use your fingers to spread the strands of the skeins out along the broomstick so the air can circulate.
Voila! Just wait until the skeins are dry and you can start using the yarn.
I'll put a picture here of my test yarns as soon as they're dry; they are outside drying right now! I used 10 skeins of Schachenmayer's "Alpaca" (100% alpaca, grey and white striped), plus a half skein of white Trendsetter Aura (100% nylon) as a test. The Aura is actually closer to the dye color that I expected. The alpaca is more purple and muted; the Aura is a flaming hot pink.