I forgot to mention in the previous post – after holding the dyebath temp at 160 F for an hour, I let it cool overnight before removing the fiber. Anyway, the dyebath after the previous dark batch was still quite concentrated (dark and opaque), and I figured I could use it again. The Earthues folks said my results would improve with harder water. They recommended dissolving 2 Tums tablets (calcium carbonate – they had used the peppermint flavor) into the bath and said it would produce a true red, less orange.

I dyed 1 lb of mohair and fine wool roving (33/66), and I threw in a hank of handspun Bluefaced Leicester, too. One of the things that always bothers me is the “butt felting” that occurs when I dye fleece (using any method) in large batches. The fiber has to be rotated to promote even dye takeup, and the temperature needs to be pretty high for the dyes to fix. I’ve never felted a batch so badly that a professional wool processor couldn’t pick it apart and make it into a smooth roving, but it is still felted enough to make it difficult for me to process at home. (I do have a PG triple picker – my someday goal is to figure out how to use it correctly.) In any case, I wanted to see how much fiber that wasn’t in lock form would felt during the prolonged heating and rinsing stages of natural dyeing.

How pretty is that?! The Tums did the trick! I don’t know how many tablets I eventually put in (5, maybe?), but I kept adding them until the color stopped changing. The milky opaqueness that I’d noticed in the very first bath completely disappeared when the water was harder. The red tone is deep, even though this was the second batch to go into the pot, and it is not nearly as orange. The yarn isn’t stuck to itself at all, but the roving is a little, mmm, clingy.

I dyed 1 more batch from this pot, after that it was completely exhausted. The wool is from the stash (CorrieXMerino or something like that, it’s a soft and somewhat short-stapled fleece).

I’m amazed at the range of colors that can be achieved with different concentrations of dye. A single ounce of dye powder was enough to color about 2 1/2 pounds of fiber. It’s not all that dark red shade, but still – that’s really something. (The next question – how lightfast is this stuff?)

For some comparisons, here’s a hank of handspun Bluefaced Leicester from the dark bath, and a hank of handspun cashmere from the lighter bath.

To show you the range of orange and pink, there’s a lock from the very first dyebath (poor mordant technique, too high temp, soft water), the last dyebath (good mordant, good temp, hard water), and second dyebath (good mordant, good temp, hard water, more madder).

Lastly, I decided to knit with the cashmere hank. My original plan was a scarf, cast on in the middle and worked out towards both ends (the weird needle position is because I did a figure-8 cast on during my bus ride, didn’t have a stitch holder handy, and then realized I could knit just fine without one), but I realized that I didn’t have enough yarn. My new plan is a cowl: I knit until I don’t have enough yarn left for another full repeat, then I do a 3-needle bind off to join the beginning and the end together. The pattern is called “Print of the wave” and is a traditional Shetland lace pattern. Needle size, for those of you who are curious, is US0 (2.0 mm).