Fleece dyeing

OK, not anything like yarn dyeing (so I learned). I processed a small amount of Shetland fleece for a thrummed mitten project (see the farm blog) and laid it out and simply squirted the acid dyes over the fleece.

You can see that with the squirt bottle (vs. painting) the coverage is random and inconsistent. The wool was showing its wicking properties very well. Grrr.

I think part of the issue was the small amount of fleece and the processing method. With such a small amount, there was no hand carders or drum carding, simply flicking it open, and combing gently with fingers for cleaning purposes. That left very open fiber, and hence....you can see the pooling.

The amount of dye that did not take to the wool was alarming; blotting took up a ton more than we do when we use the wool yarn, and even upon rolling up the fleece to steam set, you can see the dye settling to the bottom. Good thing I used plastic both above and below the fleece so the rolled fleece could not touch back on itself and spread dye through contact.

Finally, into the pot....and then to dry. Now to start the mittens...

In the beginning....

...there was (some) color. Well, actually, not ENOUGH color. Particularly on sock yarn. So an off-handed comment about starting our own sock yarn company, landed us here. You can get the whole, sordid tale if you follow along, or you can skip to the end and just order yarn. But what fun would that be? Without knowing all that came before you got your custom, hand-dyed yummy skein of sock yarn?