How is hand-painted yarn made?

While the second respondent has most of it right, there's a bit more to it than that. For most yarns with long color runs, the skein or hank that the yarn is wound into is possibly several yards long, which requires a warping mechanism. If the color runs are to be evenly spaced, the yarn has to be tied to prevent or minimize bleeding into the adjacent colors and each color is applied separately, and possibly steamed into the yarn, again to minimize bleeding. For yarn that knits into a pattern, this gets even more complicated, requiring calculation of the amount of yarn needed to knit each color in the sequence and careful tying and dyeing of each sequence color after winding into a hank that encompasses one or two complete repeats of the sequence. Ask your library to bring in the book *Yarns To Dye For* for a very good and complete explanation of this process.

The yarn is looped into skeins and put on a frame. The dye is then painted on with a paint brush and dried. Once it dries, the yarn is rinsed until the excess color comes out.

It is best to use white or ecru yarn because it takes the color best.

Hope this answers your question.

In the dyeing I have done, you'll need a few things--the actual dye, water, and a heat source.

Dye can be just about anything from acid dyes, Kool Aid, Wilton Cake Dye. You can get acid dyes from sites like Knitpicks.com and the instructions too.

Animal protein yarn like alpaca, wool, etc are easily dyed. Plant fibers are harder to dye.

Soak the hank of yarn in cold water for about 30 minutes. I add a bit of salt to the cold water. Mix your dye for the desired color and add to hot water (by a stove or oven). Add 1/4 cup of vinegar for acidity. Soak the wool in the dye on medium heat (gently boiling). The dye will leech into the wool, leaving the water almost colorless. Cool the yarn, rinse and hang to dry.

Good sites:

http://www.helloyarn.com/randomdyeing.htm

http://www.woolfestival.com/articles/koolaid.htm

with their hands ;)