With Shetland Wool week now past for 2014, I have lots I want to do from the inspiration of it all. Dying wool is pretty easy with all the wool acid dyes available and boy, do I have the wool to dye up, 11 fleeces at last count.
This is a pot of blue I made tonight.
Why dye up the wool locks before spinning versus spinning then dying? Saturation of the wool.
I have knit with some yarns that when cut or pulled apart, the core is white. No color saturation at all. That makes me wonder how long the dye will last in the garment.
From what I have gathered via video and web searches, Jamieson’s of Shetland dyes their wool before processing into yarn. It is a good practice and something I learned to do when I first started spinning in the early 1990’s.
I like that I can take 25 or 50 g of wool and have the dye pot going while I go take my daily walk. I arrive back, put the pot off to the side to cool off and exhaust the dye.
My goal: create a handspun 2-ply fingering yarn similar to Shetland Spindrift. I won’t be making gobs of it at one time, but little pots of different color ways for having on hand for fair isle projects.
What’s your favorite color work?
