It was apparent in the first few seconds that latte was no where on the menu! Orange is what I got. ORANGE! Not light primitive pumpkin ladies, but bright, shocking, pumpkin pie O-R-A-N-G-E!!
The top left if the jacket wool dyed and the top right was pulled early to be lighter. Okay, so I' m set for wool needed in any quilts made for next fall. Not that I don't like orange, but I was just expecting a different color. I really think the dye got mixed up a bit cuz this would never be a version of the pale cocoa in any form. It's really okay though. I'm still learning how to adjust for each color. Some dye quickly and others like these dark ones take longer to pull up all the dye.Remember the first brown plaid jacket? Well I grabbed a bunch of that wool and used it in both dye baths. Here's how they look out of the dye and dried. Original wool in the middle and how the colors look after dying.
I also realized that this process doesn't felt the wool either. It does fluff it up some because I go from the hot dye pot into cold water to rinse and wash but it doesn't really felt into that thick wool that hardly unravels. Since the jacket wool was really thin, I threw it all in the super hot wash/cold rinse and then into the hot dryer to felt. Worked great. It also removed a tiny bit of the dye color and made it a deeper color wool too. SO let me ask your opinion:Do you like felted wool better than thinner? The wool from the bolt is not felted. It gets thicker from dying, but certainly not super thick felted. I've bought both types of wool from stores and online places.
Now the midnight purple wool...turned out wonderful and dark. I pulled a few pieces earlier shown below: the jacket wool is on the right.
The rest stayed in for about an hour after turning off the heat, soaking up dye color.
I also tried something that worked pretty well. Since I like the dark spots, I took a dropper and pulled up some concentrated dye from the pot before the rest of the water gets added and poured it on the wool that I pulled up out of the water. All those spots stayed super dark and I got a deliberate mottled effect. It's still cool to play with new techniques and see what happens!
10 comments:
wow , very impressive.
can you take that orange wool now and dye it again with say brown?
will it tone down the orange?
your just having too much fun aren't you!
I like the wool felted.
Kathie
Oh they are sooo beautiful! What wonderful wools for you to make stuff with!
Another option would be that you could send that orange wool to me. I happen to love orange!
This is so cool Judy! I have some bright purple from long ago that I really want to dye--maybe even black, just to make it useable. You are inspiring me!
I think that orange looks great . . . not bright at all.
I like the thick wool. It feels good in my hands and the cut edges don't get wobbly at all. I have a couple of pieces that I almost, sort-of have to turn under to keep them from fraying.
The orange in the picture looks okay to me, can you coffee dye them to tone it down? I like the wool a bit thicker, the real thin stuff sometimes ravels. Your doing great, I love the mottled look.
I, too, like the thicker, felted wool. I don't like the edges to fray. Some wools just don't seem to felt up as well as others. Would love to hear what tips others have to help with the felting. Thanks for sharing your results!
Christine
I too love wool, an obsession that began with a class by Lorinda Lei several years ago in Paducah. She warned us then that "worsted wool" which is often used in mens suits and jackets, will not felt. Something in the process it has undergone I guess. Perhaps that explains some of your salvaged wool behaving one way and some another. Whatever the results, the colors are fantastic. Congrats on finding a way to create your own box of crayons!
I love the orange! :)
You certainly are getting some interesting results with the wool dye process. I have not tried that but it looks like it would be fun. I mostly have used the felted wool where it is a bit thicker. I do like the wool from Primitive Gatherings (I purchased a kit) because it fused easily. I use Heat 'n Bond Lite to fuse with. It helps keep down fraying and keeps the pieces in place. Some people prefer to use dabs of glue to hold them in place.
I wonder what result you would get if you redid the oranges adding some brown. Might tone them down but they really look good to me the way they are.
Post a Comment