I've been jonesing for a sockyarn fix for a couple of weeks now, for orange superwash sock yarn in particular. I spent most of the day yesterday cruising Etsy for orange yarns, found a couple I liked and a lot more I didn't. It's fairly hard to find a good solid orange, or an orange blend with red and/or yellow without any pink tones. I talked gazerwolf into swinging by ReBelle on the way home to see if they had anything in stock. There were some nice oranges in worsted or bulky wool, one alpaca sportweight I almost settled for but I've heard alpaca by itself won't hold up in socks. Besides, they were all hand-wash only, and I know I'm not going to wear anything I can't toss in the washer.

Then it hit me - why not dye my own orange? They had a whole section of undyed yarns, including a fingering weight Kona superwash wool, and tons of little jars of powdered dyes. So I got a pound of the yarn (one skein) and a jar of pumpkin orange, and a flyer with directions. $16.50 seemed a little high for the yarn at first, but once I did the math I figured out that's over 450g, with 100g/pair average that's four pairs' worth with some left over. Even adding in the dye ($4.75 for enough for 2 pounds of yarn) it's still under $5 a pair, which is *really* cheap for sock yarn.

Okay, for those who've dyed their own yarn before - which method's easiest, and which yields the best results? Stovetop? Crock pot? Microwave?

Note to self: Just found a suggestion online for using a dark-colored roasting pan, and just leaving it in a sealed-up car on a sunny day for a few hours to heat-set. That one might just work.