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July 15, 2007
Big things are underway!
I know I haven't posted in two weeks. Eh, that's life. I'm almost done with my gloves, I just need to sit down and really work at them. I am in the process of organizing a fiber secret pal swap! I got the idea a few days ago, and I've already found a co-admin for it, so hopefully it will start coming together soon. The swap with focus on hand carded/combed fibers and batts. A few responses I got wanted painted roving included, but there can be a big difference between dyed roving and batts. I hate to tell people no, but it is my brainchild and I have my own plans for it.
I've also done a bit of fleece washing. I'm starting with the border leicester fleece since it's courser and less prone to felting. I didn't pick out the second cuts or VM before washing. It wasn't that I didn't know you were supposed to do it, it's just that I didn't want to. Honestly though, the fleece has soooo much hay chaff, that I don't see the point in picking through it twice.
For bath tub washing, I used 2 small plastic storage bins. I filled both with very hot water (part from the faucet and part a pot full of nearly boiling water). I used cheap dish washing liquid for soap. As soon as I submerged the fleece to soak, the water turned brown. Yuck.
After 15 minutes, I moved the fleece into the right hand bin. It also turned brown, but not as much, as you can see from the side by side.
I did a total of 4 soak cycles. In the end, I had clean... um, -er wool. It was filled with a ton of hay chaff as I said.
I then hand carded the dry wool to get most the chaff out, and drum carded to get even more out. I STILL haven't gotten everything out, but you can see what a difference carding made here as I got ready to oven dye today.
The oven dying was fun. I poured warm vinegar water over the wool in a foil pan and let it soak after I pressed all the wool down to get wet. After that, I squirted dye where I wanted it (didn't really matter where, it's all getting carded again later). Finally, I covered the pan in foil and turned the oven on 350 for an hour.
Voila! Oven dyed fiber!
Posted by Holly at July 15, 2007 05:24 PM
Comments
Hi Holly -- i am very interested int hte swap! I'll keep my eyes on the blog! thanks! Heather
Posted by: heather at July 20, 2007 10:37 AM
Thanks for bringing it Tuesday! I loved reading how you did it, it turned out GREAT!
Posted by: Stacy H. at July 18, 2007 07:39 AM
Can't wait to see the oven-dyed fiber! It's amazing when you start from scratch and then turn it into something awesome!
Posted by: tabbyj at July 16, 2007 10:30 AM
Thanks for the tutorial!!!! It is amazing, the difference from even washed to carded made. Makes me want to get in here and do something with the fleece I have bagged up.
Posted by: Peggy at July 16, 2007 09:28 AM
Oven dyed fiber, bring some to show us on Tuesday.
Posted by: Sonya at July 15, 2007 10:31 PM