Dyeing Fibre

Over the years I have experimented quite a bit with dyeing and painting fabrics and threads as well as a variety of surface design techniques but up until now I had not tried to dye wool fibre. Since I have become interested in spinning yarn, it naturally follows that I might want to dye the fibre I spin.

To get started, I took a couple of excellent classes offered on BluPrint, and watched a great many You Tube tutorials. Wool ( a protein fibre ) needs both acid and heat to activate and set (exhaust) the dye.  I began gathering the supplies I would need. I did not want to be doing this in my kitchen so I purchased a single burner unit expressly for the task. I already had an enamel kettle from our camping days but it did not have a lid....no worries, found one at the thrift store ( a glass lid which is perfect as I can monitor the process without removing the lid.) I was also able to find a large stainless steel colander. I found the small glass measuring cups and steamer basket at the dollar store.....along with a few other little things that will be dedicated to working with dyes.

here is the set up, dyes have been mixed, fibre has been soaking the citric acid solution ready to accept the dye and have the heat turned on.

I began adding different dye colours allowing them to move and mix.....it was looking pretty good in the pot

I wanted to leave some white bits but as it turned out that I had apparently left too much white, I guess it was hiding on the underside so when it was fully dried I was disappointed with the result......but hey, that simply turned into an opportunity to use another technique to resolve the problem.

I once again soaked the fibre, the same fibre...I was basically going to overdye it now.... but this time I placed the fibre on plastic wrap and carefully applied dye to the spots that were calling for it. The next step was to wrap up the plastic encapsulating the fibre and put it on the steamer basket back in the pot (there was a few inches of water in there) and turned on the heat bringing it to a simmer.

that worked like a charm

I spun this on my drop spindle and wound it onto bobbins to make it easy to ply them together.
I found this lazy Kate at an antique/vintage/junk store, took a little digging to unearth it but it will come in very handy....the bobbins that came on it are quite small but the vintage bobbins I already have fit on it nicely  (gotta admit it is kinda fun searching for these things)

I wrapped strips of wool fabric around the rod to help keep the bobbins from spinning quicker than I could ply.

The trick with spinning on spindles and then creating a two ply yarn is to not end up with too much waste. I don't think I could have gotten much closer than this.....there was probably not much more that a yard difference on the spools.

and here is my finished hand dyed, hand spun yarn

I see a LOT more experimenting in my future.

Spin and Ply

My experimenting with reclaimed yarn continues.  After deconstructing this lambswool sweater, I found that the yarn was extremely fine.

SO.......I decided to create a drop spindle that would allow me to "ply" the yarns together

A few simple bits from the hardware store came together to form a surprisingly effective spindle.

the yarn plied on the spindle is shown on the left and to the right, is a purchased sock yarn, as you can see they look very close to the same weight.  They knit up well together.

below, you can see the single ply as it came off the sweater, along side the yarn that had been plied on the drop spindle in the process of being knit

I also have a some reclaimed silk on the go.....it is being plied and dyed and turning out wonderfully