So many SCAdian projects all in one weekend! In addition to gathering my books to take to the Middle Easter garb class I am teaching next weekend, I got to work on a variety of projects.
The first thing I started the prep-work to dye with Weld. Friday night I soaked my wool and prepared the alum mordant. The yarn and wool was added to that solution and allowed to sit over night. (To the left you can see some roving and my Icelandic handspun soaking in the water.)
The roving is pure white but the yarn is actually a natural heathered wool, a pale tan shade. I am choosing to work with some natural colors, rather than just white because I have never seen anyone's experiments dyeing over naturally colored wool. I added the white roving to the bath as well so I can see the pure resulting color.
The first thing I started the prep-work to dye with Weld. Friday night I soaked my wool and prepared the alum mordant. The yarn and wool was added to that solution and allowed to sit over night. (To the left you can see some roving and my Icelandic handspun soaking in the water.)
The roving is pure white but the yarn is actually a natural heathered wool, a pale tan shade. I am choosing to work with some natural colors, rather than just white because I have never seen anyone's experiments dyeing over naturally colored wool. I added the white roving to the bath as well so I can see the pure resulting color.
 To the left you can see the natural, 2-ply Icelandic handspun that is skeined and hanging up as I tie string around the yarn to keep it organized in the dye bath. |  In this jar is the beginning of the Weld dye. I have poured boiling water over the chopped up pieces of the plant (which I purchased at Pennsic last summer) to extract the dye. This sat overnight and ended up as a right, warm brown liquid rather than the pale yellow in this photo. |
Saturday morning I poured the dye from the jar into the pot, added some more water and then put the plant material into a nylon stocking to steep a bit longer while I simmered the pot. After an hour I let the pot cool a bit and then I added both the yarn, the roving and a small bit of undyed yarn from Renaissance Dyeing to the bath. You can see how dark the dye became (yes those are bits of plant material that escaped and were still floating in the water).
I was not getting the rich color that I had hoped for, so I let the wool steep in the brew for about 6 hours before removing to dry. The resulting color is very pretty (and Easter egg yellow) but very, very pale.
I was not getting the rich color that I had hoped for, so I let the wool steep in the brew for about 6 hours before removing to dry. The resulting color is very pretty (and Easter egg yellow) but very, very pale.
 To the right you can see the dyed wool. The color is pale, but pleasing (and a little more yellow than cream in real life). I will get a side by side comparison photo of the dyed handspun this coming weekend. |  |
I finished the weekend with a lovely class by Marija of Sylvan Glen about Russian and Slavic garb. Can I just say that I would love to have a set of temple rings??? It was a nice time with fun people, great food and some very lovely books to drool over.
After that I headed home to work a bit on some new garb for my BF, including this linen tunic with some handwoven (not by me) fabric being used as trim.
After that I headed home to work a bit on some new garb for my BF, including this linen tunic with some handwoven (not by me) fabric being used as trim.
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