overdying???

[Erinok]

can anyone explain overdying to me. I love the look, but not sure how it is done. can it be done on wool? TIA

[cristeen]

Yes, it can be done on wool.

It really depends on the look you're going for. I did several skeins yesterday.

My skeins are tri-colored, so I divided them into thirds and marked them with a piece of acrylic yarn. I dunked 2/3 into a yellow dye bath. Rinse the excess out. Then I turn the skein and dunk 2/3 starting at the opposite end in a red dye bath. This gave me 1/3 of the skein yellow, 1/3 mottled orange and 1/3 pink.

I did the same thing with red/blue (purple) and blue/yellow (green).

[flapjack]

Yep. I recently had a skein that I dyed with nettles and went fugly yellow :Puke I took the skein, soaked it, twisted it tightly back on itself and overdyed in a dark grey, and then rinsed it out. I then kettle-dyed the whole thing blue (with the skein open) and it came out the most beautiful variegated soft blue-green. No dye-mixing either, though I was gutted that the nettles didn't work

[isaberg]

Wool is, IMO, the easiest fiber to dye. Dharma Trading Company has nice, relatively inexpensive acid dyes, and all you need to set them is vinegar. Get three primary colors, or Magenta-Turquoise-Sun Yellow, and you can make any color your heart desires (unless, of course, the yarn/fabric/fiber you're dyeing already has a strong color, in which case you've got to work with that.)

[Erinok]

what distinguishes overdying from dying? and can i do this on recycled wool sweaters and if so, do they have to be white or very light in color?

[isaberg]

Well, if you're talking spinning, overdyeing is generally dyeing yarn that is already spun, or it can also be dyeing anything that is already done or dyed. Overydyeing is just adding a color - it's like painting with watercolors on colored paper; if you have a yellow sweater, and you overdye it with blue, it will end up green. Orange sweaters could be dyed, say, red or brown, but nothing will ever make them yellow or blue or green.