It isn’t all gardening around here…
This past weekend I whipped up a couple pots of fiber to solar dye. It works well with the gardening as it doesn’t need much attention beyond the initial application of the dye. Also, at our altitude it doesn’t need much help either. Both rovings were just dyed in enameled pots - a canner and a roaster. I did use acid dyes this time - Jacquard.
This bright one was dyed in the roaster. I drained the soaked and mordanted fiber and zig-zagged it across the bottom of the roasted the short way. Then I dyed the four colors in stripes the long way across the roaster. This produced a palindrome striping effect. When I get up to working with this top I plan to try the striping techniques described in the cover article of the Summer Spin-Off. The top is Punta wool top that I got in July 2005 at Detta’s Spindle in Minnesota. It was really nice to work with as far the dyeing goes and I’m anxious to see how it spins up.
So, I know looking at this it doesn’t look very solar dyed. Well, that is because I’ve done some post processing to it :-) On the last trip to Brown Sheep I got a bit bag of seconds wool. It was literally scooped off of the machines and was in sorry to shape to spin from as is. I got a really good deal on it. And the fiber itself was still just fine, just not in the nice top form. So, I rainbow dyed 1 lb of it with many of the same cool dyes as the above, but in lesser concentrations. It looked hideous out of the pot. However, last week Cathy kindly sent me home with her drum carder (and a bunch of peonies from her garden which still look fantastic) so the past couple of days I’ve snuck in some time here and there to play with the solar dyed wool seconds and the drum carder. This is a mix of chartreuse, violet, and teal. I also added in about 20% natural soy silk. The batts feel heavenly with that in there. I can already feel a change in “drape” just in the carded form! It is three batts adding up to 4.7 oz.
I still have 3/4 of a pound of the seconds to play with. I think I’ll be carding it in with some different wool or I might dye up some more of the seconds in higher concentrations. It will be a while though as I’ve found the carding to be a bit rough on my back/shoulders/neck. I’ll have to take it in small doses. But I think the three batts are pretty consistent in the overall color impression which as me excited. I have no immediate plans for it. But it sure feels nice to hug and pet :-)
For whatever reason I’m lacking the capacity to name things. Neither of these fibers has names. Nor does the anklet that was seen fraternizing with the basil. I’m open to suggestions if you have them!
