Dye Day

Peggy came out here today and we had a wonderful dye day.  We are trying to catch up with the dyeing we need to do before this fall's show season gets into full swing.  We dyed a lot of fiber today, Polwarth wool w/silk and BFL wool w/silk.  I'll talk about that tomorrow.  We also added to our natural dye colors for super wash merino wool.

Peggy stopped on the side of the road on her way out here this morning to pick some goldenrod which has just started to bloom.  Goldenrod gives lots of color so with a reasonable sized plastic bucket full, we had a wonderful dye pot.  Goldenrod gives one of the nicest yellows around.  It's a nice clear yellow with little or no orange or green hues.  I forgot to take a picture of the goldenrod before we cooked it up but here it is after it was simmered to make our dye bath.

And here is the the sunny happy yarn...

We have lots of natural dyed yarn in yellow so everything that came out of the goldenrod pot went directly into the indigo vat to give us a stunning green.  Here is what the yarn looks like right out of the indigo vat.  It comes out a pale green and oxidizes to a much darker color.

We put some of this super wash merino yarn directly into the indigo vat without the goldenrod for that classic blue jean blue color...

Our supply of super wash Merino yarn will be greatly enhanced with these lovely new colors.