MX dying – Felting and Fiber Studio

Silk Yarn Dying

January 30, 2019 shepherdessann Comments 11 comments

This week I decided to do some yarn dyeing. I bought some ends of cones someone brought in to the guild. They are perfect for me as I don’t need large amounts of any yarn.

I couldn’t find my niddy noddy so I just wrapped the silk around a plastic box of curls. This is the largest cone I got. There was only one so I guess that’s why no on else wanted it. It is quite fine and it is a single yarn. I liked it because has little nubby bits. The other cones I got were almost empty.

I did 3 kinds of silk or at least I hoping the other two were silk. More on that farther down.

You can see the other tow yarns in this close up; there is one with slubs and one that is super shiny and has little loops.

I planned to use MX or fiber reactive dye for these. I wanted to do them with more than one colour so I soaked them in a soda ash bath. I was surprised at how dirty they were.

Next I made up small amounts of dye and dipped the yarn into them.

I made sure they were wall soaked in the dye then squeezing the excess out with a gloved hand. Then they are places on some plastic wrap them up.

They need to sit a couple of hours before rinsing. Two of the ones with purple on them took a lot more rinsing, one of the silk noil and one of the shiny ones. Not sure why.

This is the silk noil. The grey areas were turquoise. I am assuming it is grey because of the original colour of the yarn. You can also see it got some twist energy back and has little twists now. this is the one from the first picture. The other two were very white.

This is the one with the slubs. I was not sure this was all silk. I think that one of the ply’s is not silk. It must be a cellulose fiber but it did not take the dye quite the same. The fluffy slubs are definitely paler.

This is the last one. I really like the lavender that happened because I forgot to wipe the purple off my gloves before squeezing the excess dye out the turquoise part.

Last night with the help of guild friends I put them all into center pull balls.

All in all a very satisfying dye session. I am sure they will look very nice on some felt. I may use some of the silk noil to ply with something else. I am not sure I will have to see.

Refelting and Redying

October 26, 2013 shepherdessann Comments 10 comments

I had a scarf and a wrap that where not selling and well where really not that great looking. Both had to much open space. The green one in particular. They were also not great colours. The pinky one is very coral and the wool was faded looking even though it was just the way it dyed. You can see the original wool on the top half of the picture it is much paler than the new dark wool on the bottom.

Originally the green one just had the felt squares so I flipped it over and added long winding strips in the same colour and with the same yarn. Now there is texture and colour on both sides. On the pinky one I flipped it over and added a wiggly line between the ones that where already on the other side.

I don’t like the silk colour on the green one and I don’t like the silk or pale wool on the pinky one. They had to be redyed. The pink one went into a pumpkin spice acid dye bath.

the green one I didn’t want the wool to change colour so I used MX dye. I soaked the scarf in water and PH up (soda ash) and then into a darker green dye bath.

This is the finished product.

The pinky one is a nice rich deep orange now and the green is more of an olive shade now that goes better with the wool.

When I took the orange one out of the dye bath there was still dye in the water so I put a piece of silk and some washed but not carded wool into the bath and this is what I got out.