A Day to Dye

We use many different techniques for dyeing. It mostly depends on what we are doing the dyeing for. I took some pictures one day while I was dyeing some locks. 

First I picked the colors. For this day I was using primary colors. Red, Yellow, Blue.

Soaking the locks in hot vinegar water. I let them soak for about 20mins. 

I sprinkled the dye onto the locks and then added more locks. I don't normally add more locks, but I had put to much water in and needed the locks to sop it up. 

Locks in the process of dyeing. 

Before the blue and red took over the yellow. 

rinsing.

a wider shot of the rinsing. 

For dyeing we use acid dyes. Acid dyes need an acid to strike ( take up). We use vinegar as our acid. Depending on the technique that we are using I will either soak in vinegar water or wait until we've added the dye to add the vinegar. All of our wool sits in the dye bath until the water has cooled and then goes through rinse cycles until the dye doesn't bleed.

I hope to be posting about some of the other ways that we dye.

Fleece, Fleece Everywhere

As a side effect of being a spinner and a shepherd, I have a lot of fleeces. By a lot, I mean A LOT. I can not begin to describe the number and quality of fleeces I go through each year. Lets face it some of the fleeces I see are nothing but junk. I simply open the bag wrinkle my nose and ship them out. Maybe I am a little to particular, but after 11 years of spinning and fiber handling and putting my hands into literally thousands of fleeces, I think I have every right to be. It takes a special fleece to make me jump up and down.

This was once again brought to my attention today as we were cleaning the barn for the straw to come in. There is a method to the madness in my sorting system. The fleeces that are first up to wash or that are particularly nice go to the house. The next best fleeces ( the ones that I don't want washed RIGHT now or that I haven't skirted yet) go out to the camper. Yes you read that right I use a camping trailer to house fleeces. The last batch are the" these are in my way and I don't know what I want to do with them yet" group. Yes this is a group and it's the largest group by far. I once again encountered this group today while cleaning the barn. This group unfortunately seems to get moved around quite a bit and eventually finds their true home. This is usually when I'm in a hurry and don't have much time to think about it. Once again my procrastinators nature at work.