Dyeing Fleece Experiment 2

Hello everyone :) Today's post is about my second attempt at dyeing fleece. If you missed my first blog post about my dyeing experience, then click here .... http://lucydoeslife.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/dying-fleece-experiment-1.html

In that post I go into more detail about the type of dye I used and where you can get it. 

Basically, I bought some acid dyes and had my first ever go at dyeing fleece, it went well actually but I've since tried a faster method and wanted to share.

To start off I filled a pan with some water (about 3/4 of the way full) and then put in about 1tsp of citric acid and some salt. Next I put in wool top that I wanted to dye.

I then put this on a low heat and then I added the dye. Now before I added the dye as a solution but this time I just sprinkled the dye directly onto the wool as I thought it would give me more control and give me a more variegated look. 

I let this simmer for about 15 mins and every now and again I prodded it with a wooden spoon. I tired not to agitate it too much as I didn't want the colours to bleed too much into each other and become muddy. I also didn't want the wool to felt.

Once it had been simmering for a while it looked like this.

When I felt that the wool had absorbed all of the dye that it could I took it out and drained it.

Once it started to dry you could start to see the true final colour coming though which was really exciting!

It turned out quite a bright and vivid orange colour, however as I variegated the colours there are some lighter orange and yellow colours in there too!

I have already started to felt with  this fleece so stay tuned if you would like to see what I made :)

Please feel free to leave any comments, do you dye like this? Have you ever tried it?

Thanks as always

Lucy x