Dying Alpaca?

[Belleweather]

Help! I'm in way over my head!

My mom brought home this enormous mess of alpaca yarn from South America in the 1970's as a present for my grandmother. My grandma knit it into this horrifically ugly afghan, which she then gave to my mom. Anyway, the afghan now has a hole in it and has been given to me to see if I can make something of it since it's probably several hundred bucks worth of alpaca yarn.

The problem is that it's baby poop brown, which isn't exactly a color that has me jumping for joy to work with. I'd really LIKE to unravel it and then dye the yarn a sort of dark red with the idea that we'd get a dark reddish brown brick-like color that I could either knit double-stranded as is or stripe in some pale cream. But I've never dyed yarn before and I can't find a dye and procedure that doesn't involve heating -- won't heat make the yarn shrink and felt? I don't want that! Help!

[cristeen]

Like wool, it is heat + agitation that will cause felting, not heat alone. I've dyed lots and lots of wool, and the only time I've had felting problems is when I was impatient.

My suggestion to you would be to start unraveling first. Chances are good that the blanket may already be partially felted, and unraveling will prove to be difficult. Get it unraveled and hanked before worrying too much about the next step.

There are plenty of tutorials online for dyeing wool, read a whole bunch of them, and pay close attentions to details on how to avoid shock and agitation, both of which can cause felting. The dyeing process alone is not enough to cause felting, it's user error that causes it.

[Kabes]

Don't forget to take before, during and after pics so you can show off your fine work!

[flapjack]

Okay, here goes with the voice of dissent.

What was several hundred dollars worth of alpaca yarn in the 70s is not going to cost several hundred dollars to replace right now. Alpacas are getting bred in the US (and the UK) and alpaca yarn is quite affordable. Seriously, seriously, don't bother. I personally would darn the hole and stick it up on etsy and/or ebay. Or give it back to your mum, of course.

[Belleweather]

Originally Posted by flapjack

Okay, here goes with the voice of dissent.

What was several hundred dollars worth of alpaca yarn in the 70s is not going to cost several hundred dollars to replace right now. Alpacas are getting bred in the US (and the UK) and alpaca yarn is quite affordable. Seriously, seriously, don't bother. I personally would darn the hole and stick it up on etsy and/or ebay. Or give it back to your mum, of course.

Yeah, I can see that... and it's good to know that I may be able to buy my way into a replacement if I screw it up. But my mom is SO. EXCITED. that I'm taking on this project that I feel like I've pretty much got to give it a go.

I had a look at the afghan, and it doesn't look like it's felted much, if at all. I honestly think that it's so ugly that it never saw much, if any, actual use. Which may be why my mom is so married to the idea of having me do something with it. She probably feels bad about schlepping all this yarn all over south america on her back only to have my grandmother create something so ugly that it spend the last 40 years in a cedar closet.

[flapjack]

You do know that you need to stop teasing us and post a picture of this beast, don't you? I'm fascinated to know what it looks like.