I needed to dye some 30/70 wool/rayon felt for my upcoming stitch class. My initial plan was to dye a rich chocolate brown. We will be using the felt to make beaded books and I was planning on using gold beads. Luckily, I remembered that this type of felt loses a lot of color when dying with Procion dyes and the brown might not have been recognizable. So I decided to go with red violet and violet.
Here’s the felt after the dye was applied.
I made several pieces in case I didn’t like one of them. And I went really dark because I didn’t want pale colors. Since this is a mix of plant and animal fibers, it is hard to get the colors to take well.
This is the first piece I rinsed out. Eeeeek! It’s pink. Not at all what I wanted. It batched for four hours.
Here is it up against one that hasn’t been rinsed. The blue just washed away. So I left the last two pieces for 48 hours before rinsing.
As you can see, the bottom two pieces still have a little purple left. But not at all what I was hoping for. So I decided I would put the felt into a blue acid dye bath. I redyed them for an hour simmering in blue dye.
I am still unhappy with the result. It is a bit more purple but closer to maroon. At least it’s not pink. I may have to resort to Dye-Na-Flow paint if I really want purple. I still have to fuse a layer of organza to the surface so perhaps I’ll go with a really dark organza and that will solve the problem. My hands are all blue but the felt isn’t, sigh.
Ruth Lane Art 
Are you using wool dyes? It won't go over the rayon, so you will get some color and the pink left over. It is funny because I have had many pieces of wool turn purple and I didn't want it, lol. Usually that happens when we make a black dye bath, try a black recipe and see what happens.Debbie
Wow, I'll have to store that bit of info away for the future. I've always found it hard to mix dyes for a good purple, but I have friends that do it well. I like Debbie's suggestion. We want to see if you try it.