Ever had a skien of wool that you weren't sure what to do with? There isn't anything wrong with it other than it is a colour you knew you weren't going to use, in fact the wool itself is wonderful, squishy and soft, but the colour, oh the colour is all wrong for anything you would do? Well I stumbled on a solution this week that made perfect sense. Dye it. Now I thought the same, that is something far too advanced to think of, but using Wiltons paste food dye or koolaid packages with vinegar and hot water is something I can handle!
I found a few sites that had some great tips, but this was my first attempt and I was using what I had in my house without buying more stuff. I started with a partialy used skien of Patons Classic wool. (this was a first attempt and not something I was willing to get into with the Merino straight off the bat!) I have been told that you only use natural fibres. I really don't buy anything other than natural fibres, so there wasn't an issue there!
For this attempt I went with the Wiltons paste.
I soaked the wool in a water/vinegar bath for about 6 hours prior to dyeing.
I started out with a teaspoon of paste colouring to about 4 cups of boiling water with a dash of vinegar.
I did orange and pink. I added a little more colouring to the water if I felt the colour wasn't rich enough.
I put the wool (that had been wrapped around my arm to quasi skien it, then loosely tacked at 4 points, just enough to hold it together, not tightly or you will tiedye it) into a ceramic dish and added the colour. I put little pools of liquid into onto the wool. I didn't mix it all together as I wanted parts in pink and parts in orange.
I did make sure within the little section of wool the dye was touching as much as possible. Don't get too excited with the wool and over agitate it. The combination of hot and agitation is what felts wool.
I put a meat thermometre into the centre of the wool, covered with tinfoil and put into the oven at the lowest setting for about 20 minutes (you want the wool to stay below the boiling point) and then turned the heat to 250F, leave covered making the house smell a lot like the old bag of wool in the basement. I left it about 4 hours before I went to check. The colour from the dye should have been absorbed by the wool and the water left over will be clear (or tinged with a little colour) but for the most part the dye/colour will be in the wool.
Pull the wool out of the pan and let cool a little. I hung it with a pair of tongs for a few minutes and when it was cool enough to the touch I just rinsed it and rang it out. I used an old towel, with the wool layed at one end and then rolled up to get any extra water out. I left the skein hung in the laundry room overnight to dry completely.
The colour is certainly bright. It turned out more orange than pink and reminds me of something T's family would wear at the hunt camp. BUT I am knitting it up with a skein of red/pink merino so it looks pretty good.
This was easy and I liked the results. Now when I am at the yarn shop and the ugly colours are there but they are beautiful wools that are on sale I can get them and fix the colour!
YAY!
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