First Fiber Dying Session

I have finally spun up all of my cordele wool (must find out the right spelling to that breed of sheep). Rather than dye it first, I decided to knit up a neckwarmer (Flower Scarf designed by Robyn Diliberto and found on ravelry). This is a great pattern and went smoothly except for the flower which is easy but my wool was far too bulky to co-operate so I crocheted a simple version off the top of my head.

This is it in pieces, soaking in a water bath before dying it. 

I really wanted to dye this wool using natural plant based dyes but as it turns out, I don't have a local source for these dyes, have little plant matter in the house that would work and have no real space in my kitchen to spare for the process. I also don't have ventilation when the outside temperatures are below freezing. 

I used a product called Dylon and chose turquoise. Dylon doesn't require heating. Its simply add salt, warm water and stir for an hour. On animal fibers, this dye comes out lighter than the sample colors.

I took the time to dye two small skeins of the cordiele in a second bath and to over dye a piece of a wool blanket in a third bath. This wool fabric is intended for a future project which will be a quilt. I'm gathering wool blankets in thrift stores and hoping to dye the ones which are frankly ugly as is.

small piece of 100 percent wool blanket

The final piecing of the scarf went smoothly. Now this scarf was meant for my sister as a gift for next years Christmas but my daughter was home with a stomach flu as I finished it up and it made her happy so I gave it to her instead:) I'll make another for my sister. 

I love this color! One of the great things about synthetic dyes is that they are pretty much guaranteed to yield the same results if I used the same wool the next time. I do have more of the cordele but I'm going to dye it another color...not sure what yet.

The background is the ugly blanket which dyed up splotchy since I had very little liquid left by the time it went in. I'm going to overdye it one more time, in a deep brown. The balls came out of the second bath and as you can see, this yeilded a lighter color blue than the first batch which was the scarf and it's pieces. 

I was thrilled to have had so much control over the yarn...from spinning to knitting to dying. I think I'm in love with the process:)