Eeek! Only six more days until Fibre-Friend-Holly loans me her spinning wheel while she’s on holiday. I better get crackin’ on processing that fleece in the garage!
After sending the kiddies off for a second week of summer camp, I got down to the business of carding more fleece. It’s a slow, tedious, rather boring job, and not very photo-friendly. Made a nice stack of batts, but hardly a dent in the amount of washed wool sitting in rubbish bags in the garage…
(Might challenge Husband-Will to arm wrestling match after turning the drum carder crank all morning.)
Believe I’ll reward my diligence with a little fibre-fun-dyeing in the afternoon. Don’t have the pans for Procion dyeing….haven’t read the instructions yet for food colour dyeing…..okay, Kool-Aid it is.
Yes, I know the kids will not be happy that I’m using Kool-Aid to dye wool. And yes, I know people ask what kind of parent would give their kids a drink that can dye wool. A conundrum indeed…but that will have to wait for another day. I’ve got wool to dye! And thankfully, it’s fool-proof even for a dyeing neophyte like me:
Measure out 1 ounce of wool (about 28.34952 grammes give or take)
Pour powder from little packet in microwaveable dish and add some water.
Amount of water is irrelevant, the dye to wool ratio is important.
Add wool. Smoosh down and add enough additional water to cover wool.
Microwave for 2 minutes. Let it rest a little bit. Cook 2 more minutes.
Continue in this way until water in dish is clear.
Drain. Spin. Let dry.
Better yet, check knitty.com as their instructions are far more thorough and specific…Wow! About as easy as making a cup of tea! So, here are the results from today’s play…
Clockwise from top right: Pink Lemonade; Black Cherry; my attempt at brown with Cherry and Lemon-Lime; Grape; Orange; Lemon-Lime; another attempt at colour-mixing, a Chartreuse from Lemonade with a splash of Lemon-Lime. Strawberry in the centre.Wasn’t savvy or patient enough to do variegated dyeing with the Kool-Aid, so will have to go back to Holly for next lesson of carding the dyed fleeces together in a pleasing-to-the-eye-colourway-with-cute-fruit-or-veg-name. Perhaps….
Watermelon
Black Raspberry
Melon
Lettuce & CeleryLooking at the clock, sadly, playtime is over for today. Time to get dinner. But there’s always tomorrow!
Yummy!! I want some of that!! Well done you colour conniesuer. I love them all.
25 Jul 2006 at 10:14 pm
Looks like great fun, yummy colours. Looking forward to seeing your spinning!
26 Jul 2006 at 11:47 am