Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Colour


Last Sunday was one of those days...
We were supposed to go out to an indoor fair, but I didn't feel too well alltogether. We decided to stay at home, but that didn't mean I was doing nothing at all. Not this time!

The day before we went shopping. We bought a pan, wooden spoons and some other stuff. We also bought some powdered madder and alum. Instead of having to other it and have it sent by parcel mail I was able to get natural plant dye powder just around the corner! Well, so to speak ;-)
As soon as we decided not to go out I figured I didn't have to wait until next week when my undyed wool arrives, because I have some undyed roving here and there and I have also some commercially treated wool in a natural colour. Normally I'd be doubting and almost wanting to study the whole process thoroughly before even thinking about getting started, but wool dying can be so simple! I just jumped in...


The commercially treated wool is impossible to crochet for me so I knitted a bit and got some of the skein to dye it like that. I also took some Whitefaced Woodland roving from my stash and threw that in with the water and alum too.
The one thing I don't have yet is a thermometer. I knew I had to watch the temperature closely to get a clear red from the madder, but I was actually looking for a reddish brown so I just gave it a shot.

As we live in a small home some things in the process took some improvising, but I still managed to do all the steps needed. Instead of rinsing the wool the same day I let it soak and rinsed on Monday after coming home from work. Indeed, reddish brown! :-D Would it get lighter when drying? I didn't hope so as I really liked how it came out. Rinsing, rinsing, rinsing and finally hanging the wool to dry. One day later, today, it still looks the same reddish brown colour that reminds me of a red fox!
I'm afraid the temperature has been a bit too high, but luckily the wool didn't really felt. I'll comb it and if I feel like it I'll take out my spindle. Let's see if we can make something almost from scratch! Almost: as we don't have much space and as I don't have a carder (I still have to learn how to spin properly!) I really can't work from "raw" wool so I use washed roving instead. Still almost from scratch :-) I hope to be able to make something nice. Also something small as this was only 50 grams of roving and 25 grams of the commercially treated wool, but hey, you have to start somewhere!

A few pics over here