Sunday, August 21, 2016

dying wool

Yesterday, I decided to try to dye some of my hand spun yarn. I went out and gathered all the cosmos flowers I had, plus some marigolds. Simmered them for a little while.





While the flowers were simmering, I got the yarn ready in the mordant bath. It had to simmer an hour.




Strained the flowers and got a beautiful orange color. Added the yarn and simmered another hour.



                                                            And this is what I got. I just love it!




Then today, I put 2 more skeins in that same dye pot. They are so much lighter, but still really pretty. I think I might really like doing this. I can see how it can be quite addictive.


I found some gentian violet the other day at Walmart. I saw someone's post on FB where they dyed some wool using this stuff. It's what people use for thrush. It is a beautiful purple-violet color. I want to dye some alpaca next. I'm washing more white alpaca so should have enough to dye soon.


3 comments:

Shine said...

nice! I look forward to dying.....at some point!!

Kris said...

It took me awhile to get there, but I think I am hooked! Can't wait to try other flowers now. You just have to dive in!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. I've been thinking of trying natural dyes and then opened your blog this morning and see you're thinking the same.