I went to the Taos Wool Festival this weekend, and in between buying all the yarn and seeing the sights, my friend and I thought it would be fun to try some dyeing experiments while we were in the same location. I bought a variety of bare yarns from Knit Picks and mordanted them ahead of time, then one evening we gathered up some quart-sized mason jars, snuck into the B&B’s kitchen to boil some water, and filled everything up with yarn, tea, and hot water.

A line of six mason jars filled with yarn and tea in a dimly lit room in Taos, New Mexico.

We learned that quart size mason jars are not really big enough for 100g of yarn, especially if that 100g of yarn is a very fluffy single ply worsted.

A diagonal view of the same six mason jars filled with yarn and tea, in varying states of dye. One mason jar has some purple dye creeping up the side, and another has a toffee/brown color starting to expand.

We also discovered that the best part is watching the color seep into the yarn from the tea bags, and that Hibiscus tea is definitely our favorite for watching the color change.

A close-up of one mason jar full of yarn and hibiscus tea, with some of the yarn still white and some of it a light lavender purple.

Next up? Well, when these dry I’ll take more pictures, and next time I want to see if brewing the tea before adding the yarn changes the way it dyes up. Plus, I’ll probably pick a container with more space!