FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Although some dyers will avoid answering this question, we’d love to share general information about it. As we only dye natural fibers, our yarns are dyed in various ways: protein fibers such as wool and silk blend are dyed using acid dyes, while the plant fibers such as cotton, linen, and bamboo are dyed with alum. We use natural, plant, and food dyes, and sometimes textile dyes/colorants. We carefully and ethically hand-dye our yarns. We consider water and mordant usage, as well as waste. The hot water and color are “glued” to the fibers by the mordant. Safety is the highest priority.

We always dye our yarns in small batches consisting of three to twelve skeins. We call it Dye Lot, which marks the slight color difference from production to production for the same colorway. Papiput Yarn’s Dye Lot is written with the yarn dyed date.

Each yarn is unique. There will be no 100% similarities between skeins. There will be a slight to medium color difference from each dye lot. It can be caused by the slightly different water or room temperature during the dyeing process. Different batches of mordant and dyes can also cause variations. Natural fiber comes from living animals or plants. Different seasons or daily treatments may also cause slight differentiation.

Some colorways are One-Of-A-Kind (OOAK) which will not be reproduced again, and some colorways are here to stay. We love to create new colorways. But every once in a while, we update our colorways with quite significant differences too.

Since we manually hand-dye our yarns, our single-colored colorway will not be considered a “solid” color because the dyes may not be distributed evenly to some parts of the skein. It’s one of the unique features of hand-dyed yarns you will not find in factory-dyed.

These colorways mainly use one to five colors, but the dye is intentionally set so that both lighter and darker tones are present, and there are no two skeins alike. This effect may be subtle or maybe more pronounced, depending on the individual skein. Items made up with a tonal colorway will have a beautiful depth that adds uniqueness and makes the color anything but flat.

Speckled colorways are literally yarn that is speckled with various contrasts between the colors. The base can be any color or just naturally white. Sometimes the speckles can be very prominent, and sometimes look more subtle as the specks of the dye are immersed and bleed into the dye bath. These colorways reveal their eccentric nature best in simple and plain stockinette, garter stitch, or slipped stitch patterns.

The straight-up definition of a variegated colorway is any colorway that contains more than one hue/color. But in Papiput, the variegated colorways can be defined in low-contrast and high-contrast colors. The low-contrast variegated usually consists of various hues of the same main color and some small highlights from different hues to create a subtle to medium contrast. While the high-contrast variegated colorway is the opposite, for example, the Senja and Binaria colorways.

We try our best to make our photos as accurate as possible with minimum editing process but every screen displays color slightly differently, so we cannot guarantee 100% accuracy. Hand-dyed yarns vary from one batch to the next so there will always be some variation and differences between the photo and each individual skein. To see the yarn in person is always the best option regarding color accuracy.

You can wash Papiput Yarn under a few different situations but in general, the main two situations are:

1. Washing the Skein of Yarn
   Papiput Yarn has been washed and rinsed with gentle soap so it doesn't need additional washing. You can wind and knit it directly. But if you use a highly contrasting color combination such as natural white and an intense red, you may want to prevent color bleeding by washing the yarns before knitting.
   

   Always tie your yarn before washing. Add at least three Figure-8 ties evenly around your skein to avoid tangles and mess.

   • Once tied, fill a sink or bucket with room temperature or cool water and a small amount of low suds wool wash, gentle hair shampoo, or castile soap. 
   • If you feel some greasiness on your yarn, use liquid dish soap. Add a minimum amount of soap to the water and gently swish the yarn. 
   • Gently press the yarn into the water until it soaks and drops under the surface.
     
   • Allow to soak then gently lift the tied skein out of the water. Press the yarn to remove the excess water. You may twist the yarn but make sure not to twist it too hard.
   • Optional step: Roll in a towel to press the excess water out.
   • Hang to dry. Avoid direct sunlight. Air dry is always the best option. So, you can use an electric fan and set it to low to medium to speed up the drying process.
2. Washing the Finished Object

   Our yarns are dyed professionally using dyes and mordant so the colors are permanent.
   To keep your hand-dyed yarn looking bright, fresh, and beautiful for many times of washing to come, please follow these tips:

   • Hand/manual wash is highly recommended. Our yarns are made of fine and luxurious natural fibers, so even though some wools are created as superwash, it's best to wash your yarn manually. Washing machines can be harsh on these delicate fibers. You can also save your yarn as manual hand-washing generally proceeds with very little agitation and rubbing.
   • Any wool fiber not listed as superwash on the label MUST be hand-washed or it will shrink.
   • Rinse your finished object first at room temperature or cool water in a bucket. Do not let it sit under running water.
   • Fill a sink or bucket with room temperature or cool water and a small amount of low suds wool wash, gentle hair shampoo, or castile soap. 
   • Don't agitate or rub when washing your garment. Just swish it gently.
   • Spot-wash any stains before washing the entire garment. Keep rubbing to a very minimum.
   • Push the item under the water and allow it to soak for 15-30 minutes.
   • Lay flat to dry. We strongly suggest you not use any dryers. Dryers, especially those that blow hot air or steam can be very harsh on delicate fibers and can cause the surface to felt, even the superwash wool fibers.
     
   • AVOID traditional laundry detergents. Detergents are chemically designed to strip fibers and will strip the natural moisture in the natural fibers as well as it will strip the dye away from the fiber causing fading and potentially dye transfer staining. 

Dye transfer from dry yarn as you are knitting with it is called crocking.  This doesn't happen because the dye isn’t fixed properly, but is due to excess dye particles which loosen as the yarn rubs against your fingers when you knit with it (a bit like blue dye rubbing off a new pair of jeans). Some colorways are dyed up to three times to achieve some color depth. Sometimes the yarn fibers can't take all the dye in. Crocking mainly happens in darker shades. All the dyes we use are non-toxic, so the color is harmless and should wash off your hands. Some knitters experience crocking more often than others as it is partly due to your individual skin pH.

If you experience crocking when knitting with our yarns, we would recommend washing your finished project with a small amount of dish soap, which should remove any excess dye particles. You can also add a color catcher sheet to the wash if you've used more than one shade in your project.

We carefully and manually hand-dye our yarn with a certain formula. During the dyeing process, these are preserved by heat and acetic acid or alum. Our hand-dye technique will preserve the yarn color for a long time as it is naturally permanent. Please follow the care instruction above to prolong the brightness of your finished project's colors.

Indonesia has a tropical climate. It means you need to wear a comfortable and light enough to bear with the warmth all year round. We recommend yarns with natural fiber such as silk, cotton, or bamboo blend for the airy feeling, or wool blend that is thin enough when the weather is a bit cooler. Acrylic fiber is not natural, so it will be too warm to wear in sunny days.

Before you start knitting with your yarn, you have to wind your yarn. Never knit directly from the skein. Whenever you open the skein, your yarn is prone to tangles, so you have to wind it immediately in such a situation. To wind the yarn from a skein to a ball, you need a yarn winder that looks like an umbrella. But, you can save your time and headache by asking us to wind your yarn into a "cake", and it's FREE! You're welcome.

During the milling process, sometimes yarn breaks. When this happens, the mill will tie the yarn ends together so the process can carry on and they don't waste the beautiful fiber. It's unavoidable. But we can handle that during our knitting. When you get to the point where you meet the knot, you can continue your knitting or stop for a moment and do one of these tips instead:

1. Spit-Splice. This technique only works with animal fibers that have not been superwash-treated. Essentially what you are doing is felting the two ends of the yarn together to form an even join.
2. Magic Knot.
3. Russian Join.
4. Just knit it. Some people just knit the knot into their project. However, it is not recommended. You can't be sure that the knot will stay secure. It's likely that the knot will unravel at some point, leading to holes that are worse than knots. Also, knots usually work their way to the front of the project, so they become visible.

If you find more than four knots in 100 grams of a skein of our yarn, please let us know by sending us your message through our Contact page, WhatsApp, or email.

There are a few important reasons why you should make a swatch before knitting the whole project.

1. When you start a project and use different colors together, make a swatch! Not only to figure out how the colors match but also to test for possible bleeding. This is highly recommended if you use dark and/or color-intense yarns together with brighter colorways.
2. To check and calculate your gauge. This will affect the total yarn yardage and needle sizes you need. Remember that every knitter has different tension.
3. Taking the time to swatch before casting on a project gives you a chance to familiarize yourself with the characteristics of a chosen yarn, and saves time later that may otherwise be spent troubleshooting the fit of your garment or the hand of your finished fabric.

We dye our yarns in very small batches, so naturally, each skein is unique. If you want to avoid sudden color changes in larger projects, we recommend you alternate skeins to avoid overly visible color pooling. To alternate skeins, you need to use two skeins of yarn. Start your project with the first skein and work two rows/rounds. Then join the second skein and work to rows/rounds. Keep alternating between the two skeins every two rows/rounds.

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