Kettle Dye Pot

As I'm considering which dyes to use today for my dye pots, I can not find my other dyes that I had packed away so I will be using the RIT dyes. I know hold your breath. However, there are plenty of us that live in the boonies and the fiber store isn't around the corner to go get the dye we want much less if there was the chances of them having the color we want if we are doing a special project could be a passing thought.

My past dyeing experience was a few months ago. I found out that I didn't add enough vinegar to the solution. It really didn't clarify to what I was understanding. Today I have supervision and a translator with me as we will go through this process and decide exactly how we would like to get this all done. This should be fun!

Today it went rather well after we had finished the Border Leicester Dye Pot we decided to go ahead and do a Mohair Dye pot with the same dye. That was exciting!

This is the Mohair after thought! I'm glad we tried this as well!










What we learned was that I didn't add enough vinegar to the last kettle dye pots that I did. This time we revved it up a little with a couple of extras that I learned about to see if it would make a difference. From what I can tell in just this process it made a Significant difference in how it was all done!

Now to make things that much easier I need to build a bigger drying table or tables at the rate this is all going!

The lesson, you don't know until you try, ask as many questions as necessary and remember we all started somewhere. I've had a love for fiber for over 20 years and it wasn't until recently that I actually started to try to dye things.

The two of them drying. 


#kettledyeing #BorderLeicester #Mohair #CandyCherryRed #HeritageHillsHomestead #rawfiber #dontknowunlessyoutry #dyeinginthemoment #MontanaMade #MontanaGrown #MontanaProducts #CottageIndustries

Border Leicester Wool Washing

Here is a Step by Step guide to wash sheep's wool by hand.

 Raw Border Leicester Fleece, Unskirted, Unwashed  

                                                                                               Upclose

 

1. Water needs to be 120 degrees or warmer than just warm so it doesn't cool off fast. (I do not have a thermometer to test the temperature) I pick the big debris or VM (Veggie Matter from the fiber before going into the wash)
You can use Ovus Paste which you can find at a ranch store, Eco Soap or Dawn. Today I used Dawn. Placed the fiber in the water and did not agitate it, just pressed down on it.

2. Dump Water from the wash into a bucket if you want to keep the Lanolin.. When it cools off you will have top Lanolin. DO NOT pour the water down the drain so that doesn't cause clots in the pipes

3. First wash

 4.Some of the VM that I didn't get from just placing in the water

 5. Rinsed in the same temp water without agitating  
                           6. Repeat steps 1 through 5

The Fiber on the Left is the washed fiber from the fiber on the right. Can you believe they are one in the same?