This weekend I had some major dye plans. I bought enough wool to make myself a jumper (I am thinking Swirled Pentagons by Norah Gaughan), but I bought it in white (it was bargainacious). I thought I’d just dye it. Easy, huh? Dyeing a kilogram of wool is a big undertaking for me, so I decided I may as well make dyeing the focus of my weekend. I told a friend and she came round ready to leaf print yesterday, with an entire woollen blanket that was ready for improvement.
So here we are laying out leaves… these are on some smooth silk noil. It is in the dye pot now as I couldn’t fit it in yesterday…
Here’s the blanket bundle before…
Some of our bundles during…
And here is the blanket afterward, just unwrapped.
My other dye job looked all right to begin with but there are some very dark patches–perhaps I did not dissolve the dye properly. Now I have it out of the dye pot I think a second attempt might be called for! The dye is Landscapes ‘Plum’. Here it is in the pot, looking quite good, really:
I may have to rescue it by overdyeing. I am considering ‘Bloodwood’–failing all else, ‘Currawong’ (that is, black)! So, some successes and some failures. Some alpaca that I tried out my new combs on came out beautifully, and here is the finished yarn. After my plum episode, I’m not ready to consider dyeing this! It was a gift from a friend whose generous partner came home from a drive with not one, but several alpaca fleeces. Thanks to them both for this sample.
Local & Bespoke 