By no means did I plan for every post to be about dyeing but here’s one more. This time it’s something I’d only read about on one blog and haven’t found any other references. Caroline D.H. wrote about using wool to dye other pieces of wool. Since I had a piece of off-white wool gauze that wanted to be a scarf and some other scrap pieces of wool, I thought I’d give it a try. Here’s the story.
For some upcoming travel, I wanted a new wool scarf (accidentally felted the old one – oops) but since I’ve joined Goodbye Valentino’s 2018 RTW Fast I couldn’t buy one. In my stash I found a scrap of wool gauze that was long enough but not wide enough for a scarf. So I added some scraps to the side to widen it. With little to lose, I started the wool dyeing process.
Here are the steps:
- Selecting the fabrics: I chose a red piece of vintage wool crepe from St. Vinny’s, a royal blue piece of wool flannel that had a few moth holes and a lovely loden twill piece. Each was cut to one yard.
- Creating a fabric roll: In the following order, I laid the 4 pieces of fabric on the floor. Red, Off-white gauze, Royal blue, Loden. I rolled them into a log and tied the log so it would stay rolled.
- Bathing in Boiling Hot Water: I had very hot (not quite boiling) water ready in an old crock pot and dipped the wool pack in the water bath. After about 30″ I turned it upside down to make sure all of the wool was submerged in hot water and left it for another 30″
- Setting the Dye: After cooling the cloth until warm to the touch I dipped the pack in several gallons of warm water with 1-2 cups of white vinegar.
- Rinsing and Drying: Rinse the fabric in cool water and placed in clothes dryer
- Enjoy the beautiful result. Below are photos of my pieces.
The royal blue has a lovely crinkled look. In the third photo you can see that there was an errant red thread that created a design (and which gives me an idea for future wool dyeing projects. As with the red, I’ll use this piece for future dyeing projects.
The loden is so magnificent I can’t stop looking at it. Since these aren’t my colors, I’m not sure what to do with it but it could easily be cut into 2 scarves.
And last of all, here’s another look my new scarf. The straight lines in the middle are from folding the wool gauze as it was longer than the red, blue and loden. Overall, a great result.
