Airbrush-dyeing

myosotis · 07-25-2007, 12:31 PM

Hello!
I`m dyeing my wool for knitting and felting with ashford-dyes. I take brushes to do painting on the wool.
Now I have heard about a technic with airbrush, it sounds very good and I want to learn it. I haven`t any experience in airbrush-work and hope, someone of you can help me, please!
Greetings,
myosotis

nik · 07-25-2007, 09:40 PM

My DH owns one and I've played around with it and it's fun. I would think it would be pretty easy to do for yarn, but I'm not familar with dying yarn at all. With other things it's easy to get the basics, but if you want to do a Monet it takes some practice.

Keep in mind that if you own one you can do your own french manicures and spray tans!

mare-nitt · 07-26-2007, 11:50 AM

I want to try dyeing myself so bad, it looks cool and creative.

My DH has an airbrush and he insists that I should use it, so I look forward to any comments on this also. Someone mentioned to me, that you can't get enough dye on the yarn, to go through the layers using the airbrush.

Thanks for the question.
Marilynn

myosotis · 07-26-2007, 02:05 PM

Thanks for your answers,
I want to buy all, what I need for airbrush, and I want to talk with you about my work with it (Monet...

you have to press the wool after dyeing with brushes, too, I think, it`s the same after airbrush-dyeing....let`s talk us more....
greetings,
Marion

larudden · 07-28-2007, 12:59 PM

Air brushing is so much fun and very easy! I used it in my job as a cake decorator to apply the decoration for specialty cakes. Way cool!

I haven't gotten into dyeing yarn YET but I would imagine that the airbrush would be an awesome thing to use.

My 2 cents....................

mare-nitt · 07-28-2007, 01:13 PM

larudden, after your post, I am now going to try the airbrush and see how it goes. I will just have to make sure I get the dye soaked through all layers of yarn.

Marion, I can send you a pic of all the parts to the airbrush if that is what you mean. the pic would show what is all needed to do this using an airbrush. (Let me know)

I plan on using colors for a baby (Kool Aide for the dye), if it doesn't turn out, I can redye it all one color I believe.

Marilynn

mare-nitt · 07-28-2007, 01:14 PM

larudden,
I looked at your site, and your angel beads are beautiful.

Mairlynn

Yarnlady · 07-28-2007, 01:51 PM

In one of my old spinning magazines, someone had machine knit a large, okay, huge swatch and then dyed stripes into it, let it dry, frogged it and then reknit it into something else. It really turned out pretty.

I'm wondering if one did the same thing and then air brushed stripes on one side, didn't press it to get the dyes completely saturating the yarn, let it set, turned and did the other side with complementary colors, let it set and dry, frogged and reknit, what kind of fabric would come of it.. There would be the front side dye, the back side dye and the bits of the yarn that totally escaped.... Imagine starting out with a mellow yellow and adding burgandies and greens for an autumn medaly...

larudden · 07-29-2007, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by mare-nitt

larudden,
I looked at your site, and your angel beads are beautiful.

Mairlynn

Thanks for the kudos! I love making those beads! Working with glass is so much fun and I love the fact that, while the torch is lit, noone can bother me. It's a totally focused thing.

Thanks again.

larudden · 07-29-2007, 12:52 PM

One tip about airbrushing:

The color will go on soft or deep depending on how far back you hold the trigger. And you don't want to get really close to your yarn with it. 6 to 8 inches at first, slow on the trigger until you understand how the color flows.

With a K-A dye, I would be tempted to make it a bit more concentrated so the color would go on stronger. Of course, since I've never done this before, I could be wrong but, when we do cakes, the color is sooooooo strong that it'll stain anything it touches.

I can't wait to see how it comes out. I may have to dig out my airbrush (wherever it is!) and give it a try. I've been thinking about the whole Kool Aid thing and it's very intriguing.

Speaking of cakes, has anyone tried dying yarn with Wilton Cake colors? Those babies are really concentrated and the color pallette is so pretty. Just a thought...............