Each piece is a quarter yard of Dorr natural wool overdyed with each individual color. 1/16 tsp. of dye was used in each overdye. I had a few reasons for wanting to do this. First, the little sample cards of overdyed yarn that you can buy from ProChem just weren't big enough for me. The water in my city is very hard (full of minerals), so I wanted to see how each color reacted to that water. Another thing this project is showing me is how deep the color is using 1/16 tsp. over a quarter yard of wool. In some cases, the sixteenth of a teaspoon gives you a nice strong color. In other dyes, the 1/16 tsp. barely covers the yard. The dye is sometimes taken up so quickly that the color can't get to the entire piece. I'm also finding out which dyes take longer to dissolve in boiling water. Red 351 is notorious for leaving spots of undissolved dye on the wool if not stirred and stirred and stirred in the boiling water. A few others are like this, too.
This is turning out to be an interesting project. It's going to allow me to lay colors next to one another to see possible blends for dip dyes and transcolor wools. Not to mention that I'm creating quite a nice storehouse of wool! I also am seeing all the colors, not just the ones I use most often and am most comfortable with.
I've taken a break from dyeing this weekend, but will get back to the project on Monday. It's been fairly easy to leave just one pot on the stove and have a pot boiling away while I'm doing something else.
My daughter is here visiting also for a few days. Today is her first fitting for her wedding dress. I'm taking pictures, so I'll post some later.
1 comment:
Very neat project!
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