Well, here it is...a follow-up of our dye work from the 4-H demonstration at the King County Fair in Enumclaw.
To begin, the pre-soaked fiber is placed in clear glass dishes. This makes for an easier transition to utilize plastic wrap on top to harness solar power, or foil to put in the oven. It also makes it easier to determine if the dyes have been absorbed and you have only clear water left.
The ice is sprinkled and the color schemes are chosen by several 4-H'ers and Jr. Farmer. We realized later we had too much ice and color for the amount of fiber and rectified it by adding more pre-soaked fiber, once we were home.
To begin, the pre-soaked fiber is placed in clear glass dishes. This makes for an easier transition to utilize plastic wrap on top to harness solar power, or foil to put in the oven. It also makes it easier to determine if the dyes have been absorbed and you have only clear water left.
The ice is sprinkled and the color schemes are chosen by several 4-H'ers and Jr. Farmer. We realized later we had too much ice and color for the amount of fiber and rectified it by adding more pre-soaked fiber, once we were home.
When we arrived, the day was gone and we decided to let everything sit until the following day. In the morning sun, we took the dishes, covered them in plastic wrap and set them in the sun ALL DAY. Kool-aid has it's own mordant, citric acid; but we like to add the vinegar to be certain that there is always enough mordant for the varying amounts of wool and water as the ice melts. We left the dishes over night and checked the next morning...the remaining water was clear proving the dyes were absorbed, and some of the results were great, others.....not so much.
A lifestyle of learning involves seeing our 'mistakes' and learning how to work with them and learn from them. T
Now that the wools are dry, we run it through Jr. Farmer's new hand made wool picker, then mix it with a variety of fibers in the drum carder to make our creative batts for spinning!
We hope you enjoy your own experimenting!
he question that undoubtedly comes up, "Is all that brown wool ruined?" Absolutely not! You can certainly use it in a project. You'll notice there are some flecks of other colors that did manage to stay somewhat separate~they can be used in other batts with greens, golds, etc.~ or you can re-make them! As we have naturally colored brown fleeces, we will over-dye these with a dark green, blue or purple - utilizing acid dyes. You can do the same with the dark kool-aid colors (remember the true color is in the mug, not on the package), we just happen to have the darker colors in the acid dyes. Now that the wools are dry, we run it through Jr. Farmer's new hand made wool picker, then mix it with a variety of fibers in the drum carder to make our creative batts for spinning!
We hope you enjoy your own experimenting!