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I've happily received some requests to dedicate a post to the colorful fun of rainbow dyeing. Because I'm due to teach a two-day "Fiber Prep" course this March at Harrisville Designs and needed to dye some multicolored fleece for class use, I was able to photograph the rainbow dyeing process for today's post. The fleece used was Coopworth from Hidden Valley Farm and Woolen Mill (see the recent past post, Scouring Fleece To Keep Lock Formation). This time, however, I used the shorter, 7-month growth, lamb's fleece (yeah...it's the fleece I was going to save for a special project for me....oh well, such is the life of a fiber arts instructor....) This time I once again scoured using the perforated, plastic basket and tulle netting, but instead of scouring keeping lock formation, I did the less-time-consuming method as seen in the past post Scour That Fleece. No, the dyed locks pictured below are not in singular, absolutely pristine form, but the locks can still be carefully plucked rather nicely from the whole for spinning preparation. In addition, I chose to use Louet's Gaywool synthetic dyes, rather than my usual preference for natural dyes. I figured readers of the blog might be apt to choose such an easy-to-use dye that gives beautiful results in their work. There are many other excellent dye choices on the market today for home dyers. What's your favorite?
Before delving into the steps involved in rainbow dyeing, please see the past post, My Dye Studio. There you will find the ever-important dyebox used to mix dyes safely within. Do be sure to spritz the newspaper in the bottom of the dyebox with water, so that any stray dye powder/crystals will collect on the wet paper. When you have completed mixing your dyes, simply fold up the newspaper and dispose of it. Powders are safely trapped on the paper and NOT airborn, heading up your nostrils or down your throat!
In the fourth pic from the top on today's post, you'll see the dyer's essential safety equipment:
protective goggles, rubber gloves, respirator...all perched on top of my waterproof apron. What you can't see are the rubberized, slip-on clogs on my feet. After once spilling boiling hot dye liquid onto my laced-up, heavy duty boots and not being able to remove the boots quickly...an easy-off shoe is my personal footwear choice forever-after for dyeing.
The third photo from the top shows my four, chosen Gaywool dye colors...2 reds (Tomato and Crab Apple), 1 blue (Cornflower) and 1 yellow (Honeycomb). I wanted a predominantly red, and decidedly warm (on the color wheel) rainbow; hence, the two reds. Please note that my color choices are the primaries on a color wheel. Jars of Gaywool contain everything needed for stable, lightfast and washfast color...no need for any additional additives. If you're not using Gaywool, carefully check your dye's directions as to additives or particular techniques you'll need to consider.
In the fifth photo from the top, you'll see the undyed Coopworth locks soaking in a dyepot of clear water that has a drop or two of liquid dish detergent in it. The detergent helps the locks become completely wet and ready to accept the dye. I've never bothered rinsing this taddy bit of detergent out...it's just not necessary. I do let the locks sit in this water bath overnight. When ready to dye, the water is drained out (see 6th picture from the top), leaving damp fleece in the pot.
There are many ways to approach rainbow dyeing. I prefer to mix the dye, in the dyebox, in about an inch of boiling water in the bottom of a glass jar. The size of glass jar I particularly like once had about 24 oz of pickles in them, with good, wide mouths. How much dye? With Gaywool, using 3 or 4 colors total in my rainbow pot, I often use 1 capful (using the cap of the plastic dye jar) of dye, give or take some, for each color. 'course use less dye if you want a less saturated color and a bit more dye for alot of oomph for that particular color. Once the dye is dissolved, I removed the jar from the dyebox (but didn't take off my respirator) as it's no longer in powder/crystal form and added more boiling water to the jar. Powder is the most dangerous form of dye because it can easily be ingested and is why I don't like to sprinkle dye onto the fleece in the pot. How much water to add? About 3/4+ of a glass jar's worth total. But it depends on how much fiber/fleece you're dyeing and the size of your jar. I was dyeing about 1 and 1/4 lbs of fleece in my pot. And do remember, I was going to use 4 glass jars of dyes (ie. four colors). If you choose more colors (and therefore more jars of colors), you may need less liquid per glass jar.
Note on the 7th pic from the top how yellow dye has been poured onto the fleece. No mooging (pronounce mooj-ing)...the ever-so-technical term for pushing dye down into your fiber, at this time. You can divide liquified dye up and put it onto your fleece/fiber in any way you'd like. You can look down at your pot and envision it as pie, pouring dye onto whatever slices/sections you'd like. I generally like to put one color in one or two spots; not just willy-nilly pouring. It's going to mix with colors next to it anyways, to make new colors, but at least I know that some of the fiber will have clear color, yellow in this case, if I stick to one or two spots.
The 8th and 9th photos from the top display more dye colors that have been poured onto the Coopworth locks. The 10th pic shows me, after all the colors have been poured, mooging dye into the fleece with my gloved hand. I carefully push the dye down, peeking to make sure it hits the fleece at the middle and bottom of the pot, all the way around the pot. The 11th pic shows a mooged pot of fleece.
Before I put the lid on the pot, turn on the overhead heavy-duty exhaust and set the heat on high, I checked to see that there was enough liquid in the pot to cook the dye/fleece, without burning the contents. How much overall water to put into a rainbow pot is of much importance. If you put too much liquid, the colors overblend, swimming into one another mercilessly. In my early dyeing days, I once added way too much water and ended up with a one-color rainbow pot. Live and learn. So, in order to help you judge, the second photo from the bottom shows me mooging ever so lightly, explosing the liquid below. The fleece/fiber you are dyeing needs to be wet....very wet especially in the bottom 1/2 to 3/4 of the pot. I'm trying to think of a foodstuff analogy that needs enough liquid to cook it, but not too much...hmmm...rice?...well, you don't need so much liquid as rice requires at the beginning perhaps...Readers, any ideas on a foodstuff cooking analogy? In any case, if you judge that more water is needed, adding clear, hot water at this time is fine, but please do so by pouring it down the inside "side" of the pot, not directly on the fleece itself.
OK, now I turn the burner onto high, lid in place on the pot and wait a bit. Once a full head of steam comes off the pot when the lid is taken off, I replace the lid and turn the burner on low.
A timer is now set for 45 minutes. Yes, Gaywool only asks for 30 minutes in their directions, but I feel safer with a bit more. Once the time's up, the heat is turned off and the pot is left to sit, undisturbed, overnight. On the next day I rinse, rinse, rinse in cool water until no dye colors the water. I like to put the dyed and rinsed fleece in a large, nylon, mesh bag (bought mine in the sport's department of Woolworths' years ago...made to carry soccer balls and the like), and run it through the spin portion of my washing machine (no spurting water, please). Finally, the drying fleece goes on drying racks (see past post Drying Rack Lowdown). The bottom photo shows the rainbow in all it's brilliance.
Another thought regarding rainbows has to do with just how many colors you add to the pot.
Always keep in mind that colors will overlap, forming new colors, which is desirable. But too many colors poured on can attribute to an overall muddiness, just as too much water added to the pot can make for mud, as well. Please remember that although a rainbow pot is meant to be serendipitous dyeing, you do have some control over the final color with your initial color choices and amounts.
Ways to spin a rainbow....first we'll address a comment made by one of the spider's readers.
sarah said... Another way to spin a rainbow is just to gently tease locks and spin by the handful. I generally don't opt for this because the technique doesn't give me the control I crave. But do try it if you like.
You can lay locks on handcards or a drum carder in stripes or layers or whatever, as is demonstrated in the various books such as Jo Reeve's, "The Ashford Book of Carding," or Deb Menz's,
"Color in Spinning." How many carding passes you use, how many colors, and how you lay the colors on will contribute to the final product. How you spin the carded fiber...thickness of yarn, plies used, etc. will further contribute to how your yarn looks. And finally, how you use the yarn...knit, crochet, weave, etc. further will demonstrate how the colors work (or not) together.
On the subject of multicolored fiber/yarn (handpaints, in this case):
Ted wrote the spider saying, "Eons ago, Spin Off ran a good coupla articles on colour and dyeing by Erica Heftmann (Developing Color Skills In Dyeing On Fiber: An Introduction To the Territory, Spring '97; Developing Color Skills In Fiber Blending And Spinning, Fall '97). In one of them, Erica took a length of multicoloured top, something like the Gaywool tops that have colours running the length, in a very striking red/greys combination, and showed how the colours got diluted as it was spun up...and how they got even more diluted as the yarn was knitted up."
Ted continues, "And I 'think' that sometimes, dyers don't consider that. They dye up a skein (spider adds: fibres, too?) and it looks great in the skein, and then it's knitted up and the colours scatter, and it washes out somehow. I think that's why I just don't get enthused about...a lot of highly multicolored fibres/yarn...all those carefully thought-out and labouriously dyed fibres and then they get knitted up and become optically-mixed mud. Beautiful mud, mind you. Carefully controlled and complex mud, but it's still mud to my eye. So I dunno, maybe it's just me. Or maybe there's a lot of dyers out there who aren't thinking it through, or who don't have good colour skills. I think sometimes for me, if there's too much colour in a skein, my eye can't 'read' it to see what colour it is. I think sometimes it's because the chosen colours don't work together. Maybe it's also an issue of value (tints, shades)."
Thank you, Ted, for your thoughtful and always welcome opinions. Readers, any thoughts on all of this?
Awhile back I wrote a book review for Spin-Off magazine about "Handpaint Country," narrated by Cheryl Potter. On reading the book, which featured various dyers across North America, I realized that there were many, many ways to help make multicolored skeins of yarn look their best in pieces (knitted, in this case). Stockinette stitch, often the default stitch-of-choice, does NOT always show off a multicolored skein to it's best advantage, especially in bigger pieces such as sweaters. Do consider checking this book out, as it's full of great ideas and advice, even if you're not interested in knitting up the finished pieces as shown.
Finally, hanging out in the top photo on this post, is Alexander, youngest of the spider. Can you tell he's just thrilled to be shovelling the snow around our home? Yes, we've finally received our winter's share of snow this year, as seen piled around our house in the second from the top pic. Never mind that it's March and the Spring Equinox is around the corner. Hopefully the skiers/snowboarders are pleased as punch and the businesses catering to them are recouping some revenue after suffering from an overall low snowfall this season here in Vermont. Me? Maybe we'll get a little snowshoeing in before the crocuses show their rainbow of colors.
When you've time, I have just acquired a question...
250g of washed 'black' Wensleydale fleece. It's not truly black, the locks are a glorious mix of every shade of brown from café au lait to expresso. I'd like to preserve this variation by spinning the individual locks; I wondered if you have any suggestions to make this easier -- should I try flick-combing the locks on a carding comb first?