Great Colors!

Whew!  We worked hard today.  Peggy and I haven't done much dyeing recently so today was the day to catch up.  And we got great colors!  We dip dyed a variety of colors and yarn... seen here

And here.

We vat dyed a little bit of fiber...

as well as a variety of yarn.

We dyed a pound of silk hankies and got wonderful colors.  Silk really does take the color and always looks stunning.

I even dip dyed a silk lap that's been in my stash for a couple of years.  A silk lap is sort of like an over-sized silk hankie.  Like the hankies it is pure silk but is much larger.  Hankies measure 10 to 12 inches across while this lap is about 60" by 24".  This lap weighs in at 9.5 ounces which is a lot of silk!  It would take a very long time to spin.

Another thing that came out of my stash to be dyed today was a silk brick.  It's Tussah silk which means that it's wild silk.  The cocoons are used after the silk moth has emerged.  The moth chews a hole through the cocoon in order to escape.  Tussah silk is a golden color because the wild moths east a variety of  leaves.  This is different than the Bombyx silk worm that is farm raised, fed only mulberry leaves, produces a white cocoon and is usually killed before it emerges so that the silk can be reeled in one unbroken thread.  I love the golden color of Tussah and think it takes the dyes in a more interesting way than the white silk does.  This is one of the reasons I love mixed white and grey or white and brown wools.  This brick is 125 grams in weight which is just under 5 ounces.  You'll see it on the website soon.

We managed to get lots of yarn dyed!

It was a long day of hard work but Peggy and I got great colors on great yarn and fiber!