Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Purple Fluff

B wanted to dye roving or carded fiber instead of yarn. Which is a good thing, since that's all I had in colors that would take dye well!

For her first attempt, she wanted to dye 8 different blues and purples to blend with a teensy bit of natural black and white.

Yesterday, while getting my Purples in order, I also washed up 4oz of Merino Lamb Fleece from Natchwoolie's Sushi club. This club is so much fun. There is something about knitting with yarn that started out as raw sheepy smelling fiber that gives me a thrill!

So today, the Merino Lamb was ready for her to dye. She used my kitchen scale to weigh 10g balls of fleece and placed them into 1L jars with water and vinegar. Then we calculated how much of red and blue each jar would need to obtain the colors she wanted.

We placed the jars in a 200 degree oven for about an hour, then placed them on the kitchen counter to cool. The water was completely clear, and the fleece took up the color beautifully.

Once the fleece is dry, I'm supposed to prep it like I did for the Peacock Spindies Yarn and spin it for her. I'm thinking a thick single, to preserve the softness of the merino. I might make it into mittens for her, but she's still somewhat wool resistant, so the final judgement will be in if she finds them itchy once knitted up.

1 comment:

Julie said...

wow, those colours are so gorgeous!! What a great experiment.