I spent all day today dyeing wool roving, washed merino fiber and a shibori scarf. I used acid dyes to dye the wool. The scarf photos did not turn out so I will have to show you that one later when the light is better. My friend Paula came over and carded some really fine merino roving into batts and dyed a little fiber too.
Here is all the dye set out and one bit of dye mixed up. Most of the pots, I just dyed a solid color. But I did try a few pots with mixed dyes in them.
I had three pots steaming away on the stove.
Here’s a red one.
And a blue one.
Here’s some orange roving in the sink waiting to be put through the spin cycle on the washing machine.
Paula got her wool in at the end of the dye bath after it was nearly exhausted. This is a mix of blue and purple which actually looks better than this photo depicts. It is close to a pale denim color.
This is another one of Paula’s that is a really pretty very pale green.
Paula got three batts carded. This is really fine (15.5) merino and it is so soft.
Here’s a bunch of my roving hung up in the bathroom on the shower curtain rod. I couldn’t believe that I got black when I wasn’t trying. I was going for a deep blue but ended up with black. When I try to get black, it rarely comes out very well.
Here’s some more roving drying. The one on the left was done with three colors, violet, salmon and cherry red.
Since I had the dye pots out, I thought I’d dye more of the washed merino fiber that I have. I did blue,
really dark green,
and a mix of magenta and purple. Now I have bunches of pretty colors to use in my felting projects. The really bright ones are for cat toys. People seem to thing that cats need to have bright-colored toys.
Ruth Lane Art 
Looks like a great day dying Ruth. You got lots of colours. Block is a hard one, put a note on what ever dye you used to get it. You will have to show us what the mixed colour ones look like carded.
Thanks Ann – I used 1 1/2 teaspoons of blue and 1 tsp of black dye to get the black. I will try to remember to show you the carded mixed colors. I will if I get it done in the near future perhaps.
Looks like you and Paula accomplished a lot today. Beautiful colors. There will be a lot of happy cats out there. 🙂
Thanks Marilyn – I’m sure all those cats will be ecstatic 🙂
Great colours and seems like you had a fun day! I’m not sure whether that orange dyebath looks yummy or evil, but it looks good on the wool 🙂 The merino batts look so good too – I want to sink my hands into it.
Thanks Judith – it actually looked pretty evil. But as you say, the wool looks nice 🙂 The merino was really, really soft.
Oooh pretty colors!
Thanks Vicki!
That all looks sooo good, what a great days effort. I have not done much dyeing and am in awe of such quantities being done, Love the shot of those pots bubbling away doing their magic. I am going to try a dye a blanket dark purple when the weather comes right, send me some of your dyeing kudos 🙂
Dyeing is fairly simple if you aren’t determined to make a specific color that exactly matches something. I just let the magic happen on it’s own and I’m happy with the results as I know I’ll use it somehow. Best of luck with the dark purple blanket!