May 28
2007
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So... Once you start spinning you develop this need for fibre. And when you look around a little bit on the web you discover all sorts of people dyeing all sorts of fibres in all sorts of beautiful colours. And if you keep looking you find people selling the plain undyedfibre and even the dyes and you think to yourself “I should give this try” and “It can’t be that hard.”
I got some merino roving and Gaywool dyes from The Black Lamb in Ontario. I picked these dyes because they are all ready to go with no measuring or mixing of substances and because the instruction were available from Louet’s web-site and were very simple and straight forward: Measure the appropriate amount of powder (half a cap in my case), add the power to the dye bath (in a pot you will never use for food), bring to a boil, add fibre, poke around a bit and let it boil for about half an hour.
It was very exciting to think I was going to turn fluffy whiteness (see the picture above) into fluffy greeness.
As it turned out, the instructions, while clear and simple, were not actually all that complete: Did they mean a rolling boil or a simmer? How long should I poke it around for? How would I tell when it was done?
I had the dye bath at a slow boil to start. There was steam rising from the surface and a few bubbles but they calmed down when I added the wool. The instructions had said that most of the dying happens in the first four minutes and it was very important to turn the wool over to expose it to fresh dye to get an even colour. I think I probably stirred my wool around for about 10 minutes because I couldn’t see my timer. I poked it every once in a while after that too: it seemed to all be on the surface and standing around staring at it was not very interesting.
After about fifteen minutes the bath started to boil more. I wasn’t sure if this was good or not. The instructions said boil: maybe bubbles were a good thing. I poked the wool under the water a bit more. It wasn’t sticking to the spoon as much as it had been.
At about twenty-five minutes something when click in my head:
Wool + Heat + Water + Agitation = Felt!
I poked my wool... it didn’t stick to the spool like it had as undyed fibre... I let it boil a little longer as I wondered how felted it might be and filled up a sink to rinse it.
So...
How do you like my new felt scarf?

It may be possible to salvage some of this wool for a felting project but part of me really wants to sew little white flowers into it and wear it with a nice earthy blouse. I have more wool so if I’m a little more careful next time I probably could.