Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find *just* the color of yarn you want right when you want it? This time, I was searching for wool in a skin tone. Now, finding this online is easy – it’s finding it in person and quickly to whip up a small project that’s the bear. After spending a few minutes in my local yarn shop, I sighed defeat and grabbed a white skein of Galway. I figured I’d soak a bit in tea and call it good.

A quick perusal of tea dyeing on Google caused me to believe that it really is that easy. Tea (and coffee, for that matter) stain so very well. I wonder what red wine would look like on white wool? Hrmmm. I *know* pizza sauce would work. Hrmmm, now I don’t know whether to be hungry or go do my laundry. Back to tea!

After reading about how the tannic acid in the tea weakens fibers, I started to lean toward coffee dyeing. But, I have some undrinkable nasty old tea bags hanging about in my pantry (why clean out the pantry when you can knit?) I wasn’t sure I wanted to waste COFFEE on dyeing wool. I decided that tea would be fine; after all, this is a lark sort of project, not a hangs-around-for-generations knitted heirloom.

I grabbed my thrift-store dyeing pot and spoon and wandered into the kitchen. Lo and behold, there sat about a third of a pot of coffee that had been on the burner too long that morning. It sat neglected all day, and was fairly begging to be poured over wool. Who am I to argue with the fates? Coffee it is.

I’m sure there are as many methods to this as there are posts on the subject, but I’ll just tell you what I did.

Combine 1 2/3 C coffee, 2 C water, and 25 g wool in the dyepot. Bring to a nice, steaming, almost-simmer. Keep it steaming for about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 tsp alum; stir gently. Turn off the heat; add lid. After a while, drain the water and let the wool cool down. Then, rinse with tepid water.

If I’d been going for a darker brown, I’d have steamed the wool for longer, and I’d have let it sit in the dyebath overnight to cool. As it was, I was aiming for a light brown, which is just what I got.

Last week my mom had her birthday. I finished her vest in time, due in no small part to dogged perseverance and the last-minute ability to ignore a few issues and just “make it work”. Once again, the issues were not with the pattern but rather with my ability to count repeats. I’d love to give you an elaborate reason why I can’t count to ten reliably, but I’m drawing a blank.

At any rate, she likes it (I admit, near the end, I didn’t really care if she ever wore it so long as it got off my needles and stayed off my needles.) I don’t have a nicely set up shot of the finished vest, because it has been on her back since I gave it to her. The edging hasn’t even been blocked yet!

If you see a nice lady walking around Ohio in a coffee-colored beach lace vest with the edging flipping up in the back, wish her a belated happy birthday. She deserves it.

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