Let’s talk about color transfer.
If I’m being totally honest, this is something that has given me a lot of grief as a natural yarn dyer.
I’ve had a fair amount of crocking on my hands while knitting, I’ve had customers request refunds when color transferred to their hands, and I’ve spent hours rinsing yarn in water that would simply not run clear.
When people buy yarn from me, I want them to enjoy the experience of working with it and be educated about the differences between naturally-dyed yarns and synthetically-dyed yarns, so I decided to write about it.
In this blog post, I will
- define some common terms related to color transfer
- describe color transfer and my experiences with it as a natural yarn dyer, including which colors/dyes tend to transfer the most
- discuss some of the conversations I’ve had with other fiber artists related to color transfer
- share my process for mitigating color transfer with my yarns
There is a lot to be said on this topic, so if you don’t want to read it all, feel free to skip ahead to the section most relevant to you.
What is color transfer?
Color can transfer in more than one way. You’ve likely heard people talk about “bleeding,” which in my experience is the more commonly discussed phenomenon, and then there is the less commonly discussed kind of color transfer called “crocking.” So let’s talk about the difference between these two.
The main difference between crocking and bleeding is that crocking happens when the fibers are dry and bleeding happens when they’re wet. Both kinds of transfer can happen with naturally and synthetically dyed fibers.
Color transfer happens when particles of dye remain in the fiber that are not fully bonded with the fiber. Those particles can then be loosened when the fiber comes into contact with another surface and transfer to that other surface. Moisture, friction, and heat can either speed up or intensify this process.
Color transfer happens mostly early on in the life of a dyed fabric. Blocking and bleeding happen because of tiny dye particles that were not removed in the finishing stages of dyeing (more on this later). Since there is not an infinite amount of dye, eventually, all loose particles are exhausted and the fiber stops bleeding/crocking. One caveat to this is indigo dye, which bonds to the fiber differently than most other dyes.
My Experience with Color Transfer
As you can easily imagine, I have done a lot of knitting and crocheting with the yarn I have dyed. Since I started dyeing yarn naturally about two years ago, I have completed a total of 29 projects with my own naturally-dyed yarn.
Here’s a description of what I’ve experienced.
Crocking
I pretty regularly experience crocking while working with the yarn. It is not uncommon for the fingers I use to tension my yarn to get a little color on them, and if I am working with it for an extended period of time, this can become more pronounced. Almost always the color washes away easily with a little soap and water.
This crocking is not something that bothers me, but it is definitely a matter of personal preference. I have heard that differences in skin pH can influence crocking, so that some people tend to experience it more than others, but I have not done enough research to confirm this.
The crocking I have experienced tends to be more pronounced with darker colors. Madder and Indigo are the two worst offending dyes.
- Red dyes in general are notorious for bleeding, and I have found madder to be no exception. My wife made a sweater for my mother-in-law with some of my madder-dyed yarn, and it turned the inside of her project bag pink. When I asked my mother-in-law about her experience wearing the sweater, she said she had experienced some color transfer onto the clothes worn underneath the sweater, so she was careful to only wear the sweater over pieces she doesn’t care about. Because of this, I am have stopped selling madder-dyed yarn and am working on learning how to mitigate crocking with madder.
- Indigo is another dye that tends to crock pretty regularly, and this is something that I think a lot of people are familiar with. If you’ve ever bought a new pair of blue jeans that turned your seat or hands blue or bled in the wash, then you know what I’m talking about. In my experience of dyeing yarn with indigo, the lighter colors tend to crock very lightly or not at all, and the darker colors almost invariably do. I have also learned some new methods of finishing my yarn lately that seem to be mitigating the yarn’s tendency to crock (more on this in a bit), but I have not been using this new method long enough to say whether there’s a significant difference.
Bleeding
I have never had bleeding ruin a project. Quite often there is a little color that bleeds into the blocking bath, but I have never had it transfer onto other colors. I have completed several projects with high-contrast colors involving colors that crocked significantly while knitting, and yet there was no bleeding between colors in the blocking bath. Why would these colors crock but not bleed?
I suspect there are two reasons:
- First, darker colors tend to crock more because it is very difficult to wash all the excess dye out, so these colors tend to transfer more while knitting.
- Second, the conditions required for natural dyes to bond to the fiber are very specific and involve high heat for extended periods of time. If you are hand-washing your projects in cold or even lukewarm water, then the conditions required for the dye to bond to the fiber are simply not present in the blocking bath. So while the color may leech into the water, it is likely not going to bond to the fiber and cause bleeding.
Conversations with Other Fiber Artists
I wanted to take a moment to write about what I have heard from other fiber artists in the crafting world related to their experiences with color transfer.
My mother is a sewist and quilter who has been sewing for around 50 years. She has mentioned to me that she commonly experiences bleeding with red fabrics and that she typically uses a color catcher sheet to prevent bleeding when washing red fabrics for the first time.
I have spoken with other dyers (both natural dyers and chemical dyers) who have said they sometimes have had their yarns crock/bleed. One dyer I spoke with even said she advises all her customers who ask about bleeding to use color catcher sheets when washing their projects. I have experienced crocking when working with chemically dyed yarns, though not as frequently as when working with naturally-dyed yarns.
What am I doing about it?
After talking about my experiences with color transfer, especially when it comes to my own yarns, you might now be wondering what I do to mitigate color transfer.
Let me give you a brief overview of my process.
There are so many factors at play in the natural dyeing process, that it can be tricky to know which step in the process is causing a particular outcome, but generally speaking, the step in the process that has the greatest impact on color transfer is the finishing stage.
Finishing is the final step in the natural dyeing process, after all the scouring, mordanting, and dyeing are done.
My Process
I would like to preface the process that I am about to describe by saying that I am always learning more about natural dyeing and always seeking to improve my process so that I can bring you the best possible product. One of the reasons I decided to pursue natural dyeing is that there is always something new to learn and always a new way to experiment.
With that said, let’s get into it!
Depending on how crunched for time I am, I will sometimes let the yarn dry completely after dyeing and sit for several days before washing it. In my experience, this time for the color to “cure” has helped the washing step be more efficient. Other times, I rinse the yarn as soon as the dye bath has cooled enough for me to handle it.
When it comes time to wash, I begin by washing the yarn in a pH neutral dyer’s soap that is designed to trap dye particles. After washing, each skein is then rinsed many times (sometimes as many as 30 times!) to get out all the excess soap and as much excess dye as possible. For the lighter colors, this can sometimes be achieved with as few as 5 rinses, but the darker colors usually take at least 15.
After washing and rinsing, my current process is to put the yarn into the washing machine on the spin cycle to get out as much water as possible before hanging it to dry. Once the yarn is completely dry, it then gets twisted and labeled.
My indigo-dyed yarns require a few extra steps in addition to the process outlined above. Before washing, my indigo yarn is “boiled,” a term used to describe the process of putting the skeins in a stock pot of water, bringing the temperature to 180℉, and holding it there for 10 mins. The final step in the process for indigo-dyed yarn is a vinegar bath to even out the pH. Since the pH of the indigo vat is very high, the acidity of a vinegar bath brings the pH of the yarn back to a normal level.
This is my current process, and as you can guess, it’s VERY time consuming.
There are other factors that can affect color transfer, such as how the yarn was mordanted and how long and at what temperature the yarn was dyed.
One of my concerns at each step of this process is to maintain the integrity of the wool’s texture as much as possible and prevent felting. I have had yarns felt because I washed them too vigorously or in water that was too hot. Sometimes, the yarn starts to felt slightly even when washing it in cool water if it has to go through 20 or more rinses.
All in all, this is the process that has given me the most consistent results. I’ve been selling my yarn for almost two years now, and I can count on one hand the number of people who have reported color transfer while working with my yarns during that time. This isn’t to say it doesn’t happen more often, but I hope that means it’s not a problem for most people.
But enough about me.
I would love to hear from you!
Now that I’ve spent all that time writing about my experiences and process, I’d love to hear from you, especially if either of the following things are true about you:
- If you’ve ever knit with my yarn, what was the experience like? Did you experience color transfer or not? If you did, did it bother you, or are you okay with it? Did it affect the outcome of your project or your inclination to finish the project?
- If you’re a natural dyer, what finishing techniques have you found effective for reducing bleeding and crocking?
And if neither of the above is true, then what are your thoughts on color transfer? Have you experienced it before? How much color transfer is “tolerable”? Would you avoid yarns that you knew might crock or bleed a little?
