Fiber Monday - We have color

Being knee deep in school planning means that there was very little fiber related things happening here this past week. I did finally gather the tools I needed to start dyeing and the dye I ordered arrived, so I took some time to mix up a few dye stocks. I felt like a mad scientist with mask, protective eye wear, and gloves weighing out dye powder and measuring liquid. No, I didn't get a photo. Sorry. 

With the dye stock made, I wanted to try drying one of the fleeces I have. I chose the one that was the least nice. It has a lot of vegetable matter in it and is going to be a pain to card into something spinnable. If I did something horrible to it, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Dyeing was also the perfect thing to do while I was planning because it involves a lot of waiting. I would put a part of the fleece to soak in water and go back to the books. Then I would get the dye pot ready and go back to the books. I would check on the process and either go back to the books or turn off the heat depending on what it looked like. Then it just had to cool, so I went back to the books. You get the idea. 

I did manage to get the whole fleece dyed. The first section turned out much lighter than I was expecting.

The next day I weighed the next section. It weighed much more than the previous day's did and I realized that I had made an error in weighing which meant I put far less dye stock in the pot than I needed. I remedied that for this section. There is a lot more color in this one. (You can also see the vegetable matter I was referring to. This is going to be no fun to deal with.)

With the third section I had the idea to try to get it a color somewhere in between the first two, thinking I would create a gradient yarn with it. You can't really tell from the photo (I was trying to take a picture while the fleece was hanging in my fleece drying set-up), but it is a little bit lighter, though not as much as I had hoped.

While there is quite a bit of science and math involved in the process, there also seems to be a bit of art as well... and some experience with how things turn out. There is a reason why dyers tend to refer to it as their dye practice. 

It is a lot of fun to discover what the color looks like when you take it out of the dye pot. I am kind of itching to dye the other fleeces I have. I have twelve colors to play with and those can be mixed to make more colors. It will be a fun experiment.

I did do a little spinning this week as well. I am very close to finishing the spinning on this wool/silk mixture that I've been working on. I think I should have it all done by next week.