This year, I had planned to dye 1 lbs 3 oz of superwash merino pencil that I won at the LA County Fair last year. (Apparently I didn't post about it, but I won grand champion as a newbie spinner with only 4 months experience! It was totally beginner's luck and I do not expect to repeat that grand performance again, but it was awesome while it lasted.) I also planned to dye some BFL and Merino/Tencel that I bought at the Dye Festival last year from The Dizzy Ewe.
I knew I wanted the SW merino pencil in grey, and Lorinda helped me pick out some colors for my first attempt at hand painting fiber (because she's awesome like that.)
I had raspberry, purple, grass green, macchiato, and hunter green.
Here's the process:
First, I mixed the dye up (duh). Then, I poured vinegar directly into the dye I mixed to dilute the dye. Be careful you don't dilute it too far to cause the color to be too light for your taste.
Then, I laid out a disposable table cloth, because it would be a horrible thing to stain someone's backyard with my dye. Then, I laid out cling wraps on the table cloths, then my fiber, with as much water squeezed out as possible.
I then used painter brushes (either foam or actual brushes, I had both) to paint the fiber with my dye/vinegar solution.
After I was done, I laid another layer of cling wrap on top of the fiber, rolled it up, careful not to let different sections of fiber touch, and dropped the fiber in a ziplock bag. Make sure the ziplock bag is not too big. IMO, gallon size or smaller is best.
Then, I poured enough water into a stainless steel pot to cover the steam tray in the pot (that Andrea loaned me because I forgot to bring my own, thank you Andrea), put the ziplock bags containing the dyed fiber on top, steam for about 40 minutes, let the bags cool on their own, rinse out the fiber, dry, and voila!
As for how long does it take for the bags to cool? I don't know. I was too tired to deal with rinsing out the fiber so I did it 24 hours later...)
Results:
I first tested the colors on some Corriedale I brought as color testers. Those ended up like this:
It appears colors are more vibrant on Corriedale and BFL than they are on Merino/Tencel.
Then, I did the Merino/Tencel because I knew I wanted it in raspberry and macchiato:
Maybe my eyes are failing me but I just don't think the colors on the Merino Tencel turned out as well as the colors in Corriedale.
I did the BFL last because I had no idea what I was doing. This was a mini experiment of mine, to do one planned, with stripes of certain pre-determined length, and one randomly however it pleased me, and see how they turn out, both after they are dried and after I spin them up. The BFL was chosen to be the random one. I had 5 colors that complimented each other (in my opinion anyway), and I just winged it. I started with raspberry because that's my favorite color, then I dumped some green, some light green, dabbed some purple randomly, dabbed some macchiato randomly, and essentially just did whatever pleased me.
When I was done, my first thought was, "I screwed up. :'(", but all is well, since dye day will happen again next year, and there's always more fiber to try out. However, when the fiber dried, I was amazed! The colors turned out so well I wish I did a 4 oz or 8 oz batch instead! We will see how this spins up. I will post photos.
The 1 lbs 3 oz of SW merino did not turn out well. I should have stirred the pot as I dyed since I knew superwash fiber tend to take up fiber dramatically wherever the fiber touches the dye. I dropped the fiber and dye in the post, then poured in vinegar. I should have dropped the dye in first, then fiber, mix it up some, then vinegar. In any case, it did not turn out grey. It turned out black and white. There are the really black parts, and the really white parts, but there's really no grey in there. I wanted to redye it, but Mr. Tako liked the result, so I'm going to spin it up first to see what it spins up like. If I don't like that, then I'll dye it vermilion or some shockingly dramatic color.
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